
Price TWENTY-FIVE Cents. 






A PLEA 



FOR 




FEMALE EDUCATION; 



COMPRISING 



DOCUMENTS AND FACTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF 
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 



BY REV. D. F. BITTLE. 






nAGERSIOWN, MD.: 

M'KEE & ROBERTSON, PUBLISHERS. 

• 1853. ' 



L. K. FLX'HTIG & J. C. WISE, PRINTERS. 



y- 




i I 



A PLEA 



FOR 



FEMALE EDUCATION; 



COMPRISING 



DOCUMENTS AND FACTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE 
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 



>*-** 



BY D. F. BITTLE. 



HAGERSTOWN, MD.i 

M'KEE & ROBERTSON, PUBLISHERS. 
1852. 



^ 

<& 



^ 



PREFACE. 



The writer offers the following pages to the public, with a 
/v view of contributing something to the encouragement of edu- 
v cation, and particularly female education. Could he be suc- 
cessful, in connection with others, in awakening the Church 
to her true position and responsibility, in the great educa- 
tional movements of the age, he would be satisfied of contribu- 
\ ting to the Church's interest, the welfare of his country, and 

the happiness of society. 
Y He comes before the public less as an "author, than as a com- 

(V> piler and a witness, bringing to the notice of the Church, in 
a condensed form, what great minds, experienced instructors 
of youth, and friends of education — men and women — have 
said and written, both Avith a direct and indirect reference to 
the importance of female education. 

After retiring from a short agency in behalf of the Ilagers- 
town Female Seminary, now building, the writer thinks of 
aiding this and other similar enterprises, by the result of a few 
Week's labor in the production of this pamphlet. 

Hagerstown, Md. } October, 1852. D. F. B. 



CHAPTER I. 



To Maintain the Interests of our Country, and tiie 
Perpetuity of our Free Institutions, we are placed 
under Obligation to Attend to the Education of our 
Children: — 

" That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth : 
That our daughters may be as corner-stones, jwlished after the 
similitude of a palace." — Ps. 144, 12. 

The political position of our country, and the progressive 
development of its resources, cause ours to be an age of enter- 
prise and agitation; as if thrown upon the dawn of that period 
predicted by Daniel, when "many shall run to and fro, and 
knoivledge shall be increased." But with this progressive im- 
provement of the age, in a civil and literary point of view, and 
perfectly in accordance with the infirmities and fallen condi- 
tion of human nature, there are opposite and adverse elements 
at work. There is an abuse of the privileges of thought and 
the freedom of action peculiar to the age, which we must be 
careful to counteract in our educational arrangements. The 
enjoyment of liberty is appreciated by the virtuous people of 
a nation, and with gratitude transmitted to their posterity: yet 
we must anticipate the abuses of our best institutions by an- 
other portion of the population, who lack integrity and con- 
science, whose native passions are not restrained either by 
education or grace. ""What the present age has gained on 
the one side, by a more enlarged and liberal way of thinking, 



6 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION". 

seems to be lost on the other, by excessive freedom and un- 
bounded indulgence."* Those abuses, it must be the aim of 
our institutions of learning and systems of education to subdue. 

This .state of things is rather peculiar to our country — at 
present the most free and prosperous nation on earth. We 
are the common receptacle of the oppressed and starving popu- 
lation of Europe, debased for ages under overpowering tyranny, 
treachery, and priest-craft. They come here by thousands, 
annually, to be embodied in the population of our States, with 
all their distinctive nationalities, prejudices, and diversities of 
creed. The children of those diverse masses of population, 
we are under obligation to mould into our national character 
by schools and educational facilities, that they may become 
homogenious with us, and move in unison with the interests of 
our increasing American people. 

AVe have the freedom of the Press, with the facility of late 
improvements, subject to all the abuse of throwing off every 
variety of publications, to be transmitted by the rapidity of 
steam, to the towns and villages of every State and Territory 
in the Union. Those publications are, in a few instances, ori- 
ginal works, but mostly new editions and translations of all 
the vile filth upon which the vicious vermin of European cities 
feed — adapted to the taste and sentiment of masses of the un- 
cultivated, dissipated population, both American and foreign, 
who live upon the offals of industry and enterprise. 

Every community in our country is at present inundated by 
hordes of pseudo-reformers. One would insure unending na- 
tional prosperity did the people only adopt the model of gov- 
ernment which he took the liberty to concoct. Another has 
discovered a system of education so philosophical, and adapted 
to the human mind, that the wisest men never dreamed of, and 
were it universally adopted, all the ignorance and all the evils 
that flesh and mind are heir to, would at once be dissipated be- 



"Hannah More. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION 7 

fore the light of this great discovery, the Scriptural doctrine 
•of total depravity notwithstanding. A third, by long study 
and great reading, has just been brought to the light that the 
whole religious wcfrld is wrong ; he sees plainly, and can de- 
monstrate, that all creeds s, and modes of worship, are of man, 
and with great self-denial and unheard ef aspirations of phi- 
lanthropy, he has set himself about t© free the world of priest- 
craft and religious imposition. One would almost think the 
Grand Academy of Lagado, 4hat Bean Swift says Gulliver 
saw, in his voyage sfco Laputa, had been dissolved, and all its 
learned, professors had come to ttheCTnited States, and are now 
holding forth in the <Ga,pacity<of political, medical, religious 
-and scientific reformers, lecturerson Phrenology, Animal Mag- 
netism, Spiritual Knockings, &c. All this is an unavoidable 
abuse of a free country's privileges, ef liberty of thought and 
of the press— it is a development of the natural 'tendency of 
the human mind to infidelity and licentiousness, subversive of 
law, order, and religion. Rev. EL V. D. Johns, D. D., re- 
marks upon this subject: " The effort to stay the march of 
-freedom, of intellectual and moraL elevation of "'the masses,' 
■was made m the Old World, in the sha,pe of endless restric- 
tions of liberty; but with us the -enemies of God and man are 
■operating in a diametrically opposite direction. Here the plan 
is not to restrict the principles of freedom ; but to push them 
•onward to an extreme, destructive of every thing dear and sa- 
bered to Christian'eivilisation and public virtue- 
First. The seeds of a mischievous agrarianism are scattered 
abroad over the land. The .attempt is made to array the poor 
against the rich — the laborer against the employer, and to 
prove a diversity of interests between them. 

Secondly. Attempts arc made to raise the popular will into 
an authority above the constitution and laws of the Republic. 
Hence public officers are tempted to interpret fundamental 
laws — not through the decisions of duly constituted tribunals, 
hoi, in compliance with the expressed wishes of a successful 



A TLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION 

political party. Should this practice prevail, the effect musif 
be variableness and inconstancy in the aspect and action of our 
legislation — an evil closely related to anarchy, and necessarily 
subversive of the everlasting foundations of truth and justice. 

Thirdly. Official station, designed, in the theory of republi- 
cs 1 government, for the welfare of the community, and the 
pure and peaceful administration of law, is now in danger, 
finder all parties, of being made the reward of partisan ser- 
vices, and not of real merit and capacity."" 

Again, the license in parental government, the neglect of 
the exercise of a healthful discipline, and the imparting of 
timely moral and religious instruction to the children and 
youth, is another threatening evil of our country — it is an 
abuse of republican institutions, upon which our ablest men 
have most seriously animadverted. 

Dr. Johns says: u Moreover, I am afraid it is a national 
trait with us, for parents to neglect the religious education of 
their children. The good old custom of Sabbath evening cate- 
chising and brief exposition of the Bible at family worship., 
seems to be going into disuse, crowded out by the peculiarly 
exciting character of modern practices. Youthful insubordi- 
nation is evidently on the increase. The Massachusetts Board' 
of Education observes, and every section of the land will re- 
echo their language:' c It is impossible to investigate the facts 
which attest the prevalence and increase of juvenile delin- 
quency, without coming to the conclusion, that what has been 
done in the cause of popular education, is but a partial and 
incomplete wort of beneficence-, falling far below the require* 
ments of the constitution.' And 0, how much farther below 
those of the Gospel! They proceed to assign several eauses y 
all of which no doubt are true, as far as they go-, but do not 
reach the core of the vice. The danger increases. Our cities 
arc nightly illuminated by acts of jiiTcnil'e outlawry : riots and 
violence attend even our agencies of protection: human law* 
proclaim their weakness: where is the mighty instrumentality 



A I»LEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION". 9 

Capable of approaching the mass of unchained intellect in our 
land, and impressing it with the pure and peaceful principles 
of the Gospel ?" 

Kev. Joseph Eldridge, of Norfolk, Ct.,* says: "Amid 
many hopeful signs of the times, there is one alarming char- 
acteristic. The homes of our land appear to be degenerating. 
Is there not a decrease of household piety, and a weakening 
of domestic bonds and affections ? The period of youth, that 
period once characterized by modesty and diffidence, by re- 
gard for parental counsel and authority, and by respect for age 
and experience, is -well-nigh abolished. Children spring up at 
once into man and woman; they are precocious in their desires 
and passions, prematurely ambitious and avaricious, eager to 
cast off the restraints of home and set up for independence. 
A class of philosophers noticing this tendency of the times, 
hail it as an auspicious omen, and anticipate the day when the 
conjugal relation shall be avowedly, as it now often proves in 
fact, a temporary arrangement : when the love of parents and 
children, of brothers and sisters, amiable prejudices and ex- 
cusable, perhaps useful in a dark age, will give place to a do- 
mestic philanthropy in the strong light of a higher civiliza- 
tion." 

Such are the alarming symptoms of national decay which 
hare imperceptibly made their way into the homes of our fami- 
lies, in opposition to the example of our forefathers. The ele- 
ments of insubordination are implanted in the minds of our 
children before they become conscious of their responsibility 
as citizens, and subjects of the government of our great Re- 
public. These things are greatly deplored by all intelligent 
and good men, and lovers of their country's welfare, and we 
are bound by all that is sacred and patriotic, to aim at coun- 
teracting them in the establishing of our literary institutions, 
and the regulation of our plans of instruction. We must meet 



*Presby!erian Education Repository, 



10 A TLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

those evils in the instruction of the present generation of chil- 
dren as far as practicable, and we must educate those "who are 
to be the parents of the next generation, so as to be competent 
to assume the duties of parents, and the responsibility of su- 
perintending the rising destiny of their children. 

"We have survived every danger thus far, and have sub- 
sisted as a free and happy people for seventy-six years— the 
experiment of the practicability of a nation's governing itself 
lias been exhibited before the world, defying the scepticism of 
European tyrants upon the subject. The consequence is, an 
almost universal desire for liberty has extended itself through 
the nations of the old world. In the language of Dr. Johns, 
■" The independence of the American colonics, and their union, 
amidst the blessings ef freedom, has been the first grand po- 
litical birth of those gr-oanings and travailings in pain, of hu- 
man souls thus vitalized. And then began the reaction of our 
•own government upon the older nations of Europe. The spirit 
of freedom is not, cannot be, confined to the United States. — 
It has crossed the broad Atlantic. Letters, newspapers, books, 
Governor's messages, Congressional speeches, pour in upon the 
restricted liberties and hoary institutions of the old world, and 
tell every where the story of freedom. You know the conse- 
quences ! Diamonds glitter in crowns, and stars and trinkets 
shine upon titled orders, as much, perhaps more, than ever ; but 
there is anxiety in royal breasts, and forebodings beneath scar- 
let scarfs and robes. A voice sounds from Judea, ' Bo not ye 
called Rabbi, Rabbi; for one is your master, even Christ, and 
.-ill ye are brethren.' Three mystic words, 'Liberty, Equality, 
Fraternity,' make State diamonds dim, and sadly displace the 
tinsel of despotic rank and station. Crowns tumble in the 
dust, and royality takes refuge in exile, while America, and 
-lie United States, and still more, our Protestant faith, are 
cursed as the authors of this confusion." 

The nations of Europe yet pronounce us incompetent to 
exist as a nation, and the abuses of our liberty to overcome the 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 11 

itse of it. The evils among us, of which we complain, they 
predict will yet gain the ascendency over the power of our re- 
ligion, our virtue, and our government fall under the unre- 
strained elements of anarchy, that are now gathering strength 
among us. " We have been sneeringly called, by European 
reviewers and politicians, a 'government without principle,' 
our Union 'a rope of sand,' and have been told that our days 
were numbered, and that we should soon be wrecked upon the 
rocks of anarchy and coufusion. 

"But what a change has come over the face of Europe! The 
example of our government has been the illuminator, and is 
hourly upturning the oppression of the world. Say what men 
will, it is mainly owing to the colossal elevations of liberty and 
prosperity, in this free and Protestant land, that Europe now 
feels the necessity and the ability of political reformation. 

How overivhclming in view of these influences of American 
laws, constitutions, and prosperity, are the responsibilities of 
our country ! How immensely important is it that the cause 
of self-government should suffer no damage by our example: 
that the great principles of civil and religious liberty, which 
are now spreading from our shores over the face of the whole 
earth, be kept healthy and sound at home: that we hold the 
doctrine, a free and open Bible, the watch-tower and light- 
house of American liberty — the government of written law ! 
And how, oh! how can we expect that such will be the case, un- 
less we as Protestant Christians, work the whole machinery of 
gospel influences, as we never yet have done, day and night, 
with prayers and tears, trusting in God ! And that we strive 
by all possible means to imbue the educated popular mind with 
the conservative and saving power of true religion, even faith 
in Christ, working by love — love to God and love to man ! — 
My brethren, we are under bonds to the human race; we must 
take care ivhat we are, and what we c?o."* 



*Rev.H.V. D. Johns, D. D. 



IS A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION". 

Here in our country the experiment is to be continued, 
■whether the maxim, "Truth is mighty and will prevail," is it- 
self true. Let persons of all religious creeds and political sen- 
timents be gathered into one great people — let the high and 
the low, the bond and the free, the educated and the ignorant, 
the virtuous and degraded and vicious, come together in one 
country — give liberty to each for the expression of opinion, 
and the exercise of mind ; will truth in their midst — truth in 
politics — truth in philosophy — truth in religion finally triumph? 
Amidst the conflicting sentiments of error, "will it be mighty 
in the regulation of parental duties — the education of the young 
— the extension of the gospel, and the operation of the Holy 
Spirit in his sanctifying power over the corrupt heart of man? 

Will a sovereign God, in the saving grace and healing mercy 
of His Son, cause the religion of His Bible to prevail over all 
the antagonistic errors of Catholicism, infidelity, and "philoso- 
phy and vain deceit," and vindicate the truth of Protestantism, 
and our liberty go down untarnished to our posterity, in the pre- 
sence of the witnessing nations of -the earth, and their predic- 
tions to the contrary? This is our responsible position, how shall 
avc help ourselves ? We look to that Grod in whose hand is the 
destiny of nations, for help, and then we resort to the proper 
education of the rising generation in whom is our hope, in their 
impressions and instruction in the nursery, the primary school, 
and the superior seminary. What kind of institutions shall 
wc build ? What kind of system of instruction shall we adopt? 
Shall wc simply aim at a high state of intellectual training of 
the masses? This we are often admonished to do in the ha- 
rangue of every tyro on popular education. But it fails to at- 
tain the end in contemplation. You cannot convince the mind 
of those classes of persons who constitute the bone and sinew 
of a country, the middle classes of society, farmers, mechanics, 
and operatives, that this is all that is necessary to secure the 
virtue and intelligence of our people, sufficient to insure the 
permanency of our government, and the salvation of our coun- 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION, IS 

try. Those sensible men are not persuaded by such repre- 
sentations to contribute largely of their income and fortunes 
to build seminaries and colleges, and sustain high schools, as a 
remedy to counteract all the ten thousand evils which threaten 
to overwhelm us. Their reply is, when you solicit them for 
money for such objects : "Look at many of your learned men 
— your professional men — your public men, what kind of ex- 
amples do many of them set us ? Instead of examples of purity 
of morals to our youth — a counscientious course of life — integ- 
rity in their conduct — -the character of many of them is such, 
that their lives are contaminating as far as their superior abili- 
ties give them influence — their learning is only an injury to the 
country in which they live." The sentiment is given by an 
English writer as follows : "Of what immense importance is it 
to society whether a man of first-rate fortune and distinction, 
is well or ill brought up ? What a taste and fashion he may 
inspire for private and political vice I — and what misery and 
mischief he may produce to the thousand human beings who 
are dependent on him! A country contains no such curse 
within its bosom. Youth, wealth, high rank, and vice form a 
combination which baffles all remonstrance and beats down all 
opposition. A man of high rank who combines these qualifica- 
tions for corruption, is almost the master of the manners of the 
age, and has the public happiness within his grasp. But the 
most beautiful possession which a country can have is a noble 
and a rich man, who loves virtue and knowledge ; who, with- 
out being feeble or fanatical, is pious ; and who, without being 
factious, is firm and independent; who, in his political life, is 
an equitable mediator between the government and people ; 
and, in his civil life, a firm promoter of all which can shed a 
lustre upon his country, or promote the peace and order of the 
world."* 
Every man of common-sense will at once see that mere intel- 



*itev, Sidney Smith, on Female Education, 



34 A FLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION", 

loctual instruction is not sufficient, provided it be disconnected 
from moral and religious cultivation ; for, give men learnings 
and cultivate their intellectual abilities, and you give them 
power; and provided this power be not balanced by conserva- 
tive moral principle, and the consciousness of accountability 
to God, they are only prepared to become dangerous citi- 
zens. Of this class are our corrupt politicians, professional 
men of impure lives r and all that class in "high life," zvhose 
end is destruction, whose (rod i» their belli/, and whose glory 
is in their shame, who- mind earthly things. It is not the de- 
gradation of the ignorant classes from which the danger of our 
country may be so much apprehended, as we are often told, as 
the degradation of the intelligent ©lasses. To secure a health- 
ful course of instruction, and a state of sound moral princi- 
ple and virtue, that will make men the "salt of the earth," 
ten of whom would have saved Sodom, we must combine the 
soundly religious, with the intellectual — the cultivation of the 
heart with the head. This kind of education will only make 
man conscious of his high position as an immortal being, in- 
fluencing and being influenced by his fellow men, feeling him- 
self amenable to his God, and looking forward to a judgment 
to come, for the consummation of his earthly career. So that 
those high and noble motives- dhrawn from his accountability to 
God — motives commensurate with the destiny of man, will be 
his prevailing motives, controlling all his conduct. "The edu- 
cation of the intellect at the expense of the heart is an im- 
morality ; it is a perversion of the laws of nature as well as of 
the commands of Revelation. It would be considered mon- 
'strous to undertake to cultivate the sense of hearing, by shut- 
ting up a child in a dark room, and thereby injuring his sense 
of sight. The child has a right to the development of all his- 
senscs. lie has a higher right to the development of the fa- 
culties of his soul, moral and intellectual. The Chinese cus- 
tom of bandaging the feet is not a more effectual encroachment 
on the perfection of the physical system than our political cus- 



A PLEA FOE, FEMALE EDUCATION- 15> 

torn of dwarfing the heart is a dishonor to the moral system- 
Even if our children were young angels, they ought to be dail y~ 
taught tike truth of heaven. Since they are simaers they need 
it more."* 

"It is not so well considered as- it should be,. that education 
is both a science and an art. Though not one of the exact 
sciences, it rests on deep and complicated elementary princi- 
ples, and calls for a more careful study of the early suscepti- 
bilities and operations of the human mind, than any other 
science. Every child has, if I may so speak, three natures — 
a physical, a mental, and a moral, between which there are- 
mysterious sympathies and connections, that reciprocally gov- 
ern and are governed. He has organs of sense which are the 
inlets of knowledge, and without which he could not learn any- 
thing, however skilful! the teacher.. He would still have a mind,, 
but it would be a prisoner,, groping hopelessly in a dungeon, — - 
He has perception,, reason, memory,, and imagination. He can 
learn and apply rules, understand propositions, and in simple 
examples see the connection between premises and conclusions- 
He can be stimulated and swayed by motives, and is peculiar- 
ly alive to their influence. He is susceptible of a great va- 
riety of enrotions, — of hope and fear ; of joy and sorrow ; of 
love and hatred. But I need not enumerate. Every child in 
the 'primary school has a moral a& ivell as a rational nature, — 
has a conscience. He can discern between good and evil. He 
knows the difference between right and wrong, between truth 
and falsehood. In short,, he has within him all the elements- 
of high responsibility ; all the noble faculties of an accountable 
and an immortal being. But these faculties are yet to be un- 
folded, to be cultivated, to be educated. The understanding 
needs it. The memory needs it. The imagination needs it- 
The conscience and the heart need it."f 



*Tentb Annual Report of Education in. Massachusetts* 
tReport of the Presbyterian Board of Education* 



16 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

Here has been the great failure in our system of education 
in many sections of the country, from the primary school up 
to the highest schools of the land ; and the consequence is, 
that we have many intelligent men -who are not virtuous. — 
Others -who have not had the advantages of a superior educa- 
tion, refuse to contribute largely to the building and endowing 
of schools of a high order ; attributing the whole moral de- 
linquency among the educated classes to education itself, as 
its legitimate results any where and under all circumstances — 
not discriminating between education and the abuse of educa- 
tion. This has been the ruin of poor France. She has educated 
her higher orders intellectually but not religiously, and the 
consequence is, there is not integrity enough in the nation to 
maintain a permanent government. " France, too, has spoken; 
and her voice comes to us in tones, at once, of encouragement 
and of warning. She has cultivated the intellect, but she has 
corrupted the heart. She has awakened the susceptibilities of 
the soul, but she has incited them to crime ; and while she has 
shown us, by the example of intellectual training, of what the 
system is capable, she has admonished us to neglect not the 
improvement of those other powers, the harmonious develop- 
ment of which is alone the education of the man."* 

Again, no system of moral training in the abstract, can 
qualify the pupil for this position in life, alluded to in the fore- 
going observations, without the power of the religion of our 
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The natural depravity of the 
human heart is so complete, and so invincible to all human 
teachings and human agencies, that it can be only overcome 
by the divine teaching of God's word, and the influence of the 
Holy Spirit. Hence, when we speak of the cultivation of the 
heart, we mean that the heart can only be effectually cultivated 
and radically changed by the truths of the Bible, and the hal- 
lowing power of the Spirit, in consequence of its deep depravity. 



'Massachusetts BoarJ of education. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 17 

Those who believe there is a principle of evil in the human 
soul, lying back of consciousness, incorporated as an original 
element into its constitution, beginning to be when the spirit 
began to be, and growing with it through all the primordial 
stages of its growth — which, indeed, belongs to the anti-natal 
period of every desccndent of Adam, as much as spottedness 
belongs to an unborn leopard before it has a skin, or venom 
to an unhatchcd cockatrice before it has a sting; — those who 
believe this, hold, in a literal sense, and with regard to all 
mankind, that the innate affections or dispositions of the soul 
are " not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, 
until another influence, emanating from the Godhead, and 
equal in itself to an act of creation shall have renewed them."* 
Thi3 is the view of the human heart, as a subject of instruc- 
tion, entertained by the orthodox people of Massachusetts. 

" Christianity, in all its peculiar provisions and teachings, 
assumes that moral depravity, even in children, is a poisonous 
infection of such terrible power, that it bids utter defiance to 
all lenitives, all management, in every form, from man and 
creatures ; and will yield to no other than the renewing agency 
of the Spirit of God. The influence of education, apart from 
this agency, may accomplish many things. It may develope, 
in beautiful symmetry, the constitutional excellencies. It may 
suppress constitutional excesses. It may correct constitu- 
tional vices. It may cultivate the natural sentiments, refine 
the tastes, exalt and ennoble the temper and tone of the 
mind, give dignity and grace to the manners, light and autho- 
rity to conscience, force and principle to character. It may 
inspire respect and reverence to the rites and solemnities of 
religion. All this and more it may do. But there are some 
things it cannot do: it cannot shed abroad the love of God in 
the heart, nor displace our natural enmity to God, nor bring 
the soul under the power of the cross, nor diffuse through it 



•Massachusetts Board of education. 



18 A TLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

the spirit of Jesus, nor teach it to live by faith, nor introduce 
into it any one of those fruits of the Holy Spirit, without 
which all virtue is reprobate, all religion a name or a delu- 
sion, and all check upon native depravity ineffectual and tem- 
porary." * 

" But the heart, that natural seat of evil propensities, that 
little, troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what ig 
right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees. It must be 
admonished by reproof, and allured by kindness. Its liveliest 
advances are frequently impeded by the obstinancy of preju- 
dice, and its brightest provisions often obscured by the tem- 
pests of passion. It is slow in its acquisition of virtue, and 
reluctant in its approaches to piety." f 

" I have no confidence in the reformatory power of educa- 
tion into which moral and religious influences do not enter. — 
I assume, — as any one having the slightest acquaintance with 
your writings and teachings on this subject knows that you 
do, — that the three great classes of power, — the physical, in- 
tellectual, and moral, — shall each receive its proper training ; 
and then I feel authorised to look confidently for that provi- 
dential blessing, which will secure the high results already 
ttlluded to. . Without such a training, I have no right to ex- 
pect the blessing of heaven, or a good result, when I do not 
fulfil the conditions on which such results are promised. 

" The world has already seen enough of highly cultivated in- 
tellect, while the physical and moral man has been dwarfed. — 
Of this, we have too much melancholy proof in the demoraliz- 
ing character of -a large part of our current literature, includ- 
ing poetry, fiction, and the periodical "press. The history of 
ambition, marked at every step of its career with carnage and 
.blood, is sad proof that towering intellect, uncontrolled by a 
higher principle, is only augmented power for mischief. How 
much greater and better, when weighed in just balances, had 

" Mistakes in Education, by Rev. Thomas II. Skinner. D. D. 

t Hannah Moru'e Thoughts on the Cultivation of the Heart and Temper. 



A PLEA EOE, FEMALE EDUCATION. 19 

Byron and Napoleon been, had their godlike powers been 
swayed by high moral considerations, in place of low passions 
and vaulting ambition !"* 

"The Religion of the Scriptures is the only system of 
truth which will make children virtuous. This I say with 
confidence ; because no other system of doctrines has ever 
made men virtuous. The christian system alone teaches what 
virtue is ; and leads alone to the attainment of this glorious 
attribute, and the practical obedience to its dictates. If child- 
ren, then, are not religiously educated, they will be perfectly 
destitute of all human aid towards becoming virtuous." f 

Robert Hall, in disquisitions upon the effect of religion upon 
the character of a nation, remarks : " Religion establishes a 
tribunal in our own breast, when that which is concealed from 
every other eye is arraigned, and the very embryo of crime 
detected and destroyed." "Hence," says he, "we find in 
the first age of the church, heathens made frequent complaints 
of the inactivity of christians, but never accused them of tur- 
bulence ; and that while many fled into deserts, from austeri- 
ty and devotion, not one, during the prevalence of paganism, 
endured the chastisement of the laws for sedition or treason. 
The pious of every age have been alio ays the quiet of the land." 

Here there is a combination of testimony from some of the 
greatest minds in the church, the most experienced instructors ; 
that a diligent, practical, religious training must invariably be 
concomitant with the instructions of the intellectual powers of 
the mind in our schools, to complete the education of our chil- 
dren and youth for any responsible position in life with safety. 
And any other mode of instruction introduced into our schools 
and seminaries, apart from a union with pure religion, can never 
reach the deep fountains of the depravity of the heart — out of 
which are the issues of life. -Any other mode or system is an 



* Letter from Solomon Adams. Esq , to the Hon. Horace Mann, Secretary 
of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 
f Dr. Timothy Dwighl. 



tO A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

abuse of education, and an imposition upon a christian people, 
from the primary school to the highest seminary of the land. 
The argument resorted to in the attempt to get rid of this 
obligation by those concerned, are, that religious and moral ob- 
ligations founded upon religion ought to be taught at home — 
in the Sabbath-schools — under the instruction of ministers, 
and not in common schools, colleges and superior seminaries — 
that difficulties arise from the diversity of the creeds and re- 
ligious notions of the parents of the pupils. These objections 
we -will answer in the language of the Annual Report of the 
Board of Education of the Presbyterian Church for 1850. 
"The importance of our educational operations is seen in their 
connection with Christian Training in Schools, Acade- 
mies and Colleges. Public institutions of education are ne- 
cessary auxiliaries in the great work of elevating the young. 
These fountains of influence can be kept pure and refreshing 
only by means of gospel truth. If religion be divested from 
education, bitter and full of evil will be its springs. The 
church consults its true interest in watching over the provis- 
ions for the teaching of children, and in honoring God's holy 
word as the basis of all sound instruction. The idea that re- 
lic-ion is to be taught at home, but not at the school, assumes 
that a partial inculcation of divine truth absolves from the ob- 
ligation of its full and thorough promulgation. Such an idea 
is kindred to the monstrous plea of the worldling, that religion 
may be good enough for the Sabbath but not for the other days 
of the week. The Board conceives that there is no scriptural 
ground for conducting the work of education on different prin- 
friples at home and at school — religiously in private, and in a 
secular manner in public. The same great principles which God 
has given for the training up of children under parental au- 
thority apply to their training in public institutions — where 
the teacher sustains, in many respects, the relation of a father 
fa the family. The Church has too long submitted to the in- 
evitable consequences cf the expurgation from our common 



A PLEA FOB, FEMALE EDUCATION. 



*1 



trchools of the doctrine and precepts of our common Christian- 
ity. The importance of educating the whole people has been 
so magnified that the quality of their education has become an 
incidental and subordinate consideration. This is a great evil. 
A mere secular system that renounces instruction in divine 
truth, has no -well grounded assurance of being permanently 
useful to the community. " Knowledge is malignant," said an 
illustrious philosopher ; unless sanctified, it brings no good 
will to man, and breathes no spirit of philanthropy. The great 
hope of educating men, is in educating them in "the way they 
should go." To educate them as heathens, as Mahommedans, 
as Papists, would be a criminal misdirection ; and to educate 
them in no religion is a perversion attended by inevitable and 
irreparable loss, and is blameworthy according to the light and 
opportunities of a christian community. The General Assem- 
bly has resolved, in the fear of God, to re-introduce divine 
truth into its institutions of Education, as far as may be prac- 
ticable. To this end the Board of Education has assisted in 
establishing schools, academies and colleges on the basis of 
uniting religious with secular knowledge. If there be any 
value, therefore, in the christian training of the rising genera- 
tion, the importance of the Assembly's system of measures in 
co-operating towards that result, cannot be overrated." 

This, and this alone, is a healthy mode of education — such 
as will introduce a healthy state of morals, elevate our char- 
acter as a nation, insure perpetuity to our government, and 
augment our influence as a great, free people on earth. Not 
to educate, all will agree, would ruin us ; ignorance and viee 
would combine, against which no republic, no government m 
which the people govern, could stand. For, in a mode of gov- 
ernment where the people have the dominant power, the 
character of the people must be healthful, virtuous, and hon- 
est, or they will destroy themselves. 

Suppose we educate only a part of our population, and the 
consequence must be, the formation of classes, and the distioe- 



22 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION, 

tions of aristocracy and mean submission. The intelligent 
will take the advantage of, and impose upon, the ignorant; 
the latter become tools to serve the selfish purposes of the for- 
mer, and the moral character of both classes become corrupted. 

But, again, suppose we aim to educate all classes, which is 
more and more the disposition of the people, — but we educate 
only in part — we educate the intellectual and not the moral 
man — the head and not the heart, an error into which we have 
so dreadfully fallen, and the consequences all good men lament, 
— would it be philosophical, when the heart, conscience and 
moral faculties of the mind are an equally important part of 
man, and equally susceptible of cultivation with any of the 
other powers of his being ? Has not our Great and Alhvise 
Maker intended our moral being to be educated with our in- 
tellectual ? has he not made provision for it ? He has sent 
prophets and inspired men and messages from Heaven, consti- 
tuting instructions for the moral and immortal man. 

Now, suppose a nation, under all this, set aside religion in 
their educational plans, or look upon it as not equally signifi- 
cant with their secular instruction, can they do this violence to 
their nature w T ith impunity ? can they counteract the designs 
of God and still retain his blessings upon their government 
and people ? 

Those who have kicked the Bible out of the primary school- 
room in order to accommodate the Roman Catholics and Infi- 
dels, sec the disapprobation of God in the juvenile outlawry of 
the land. And those who are anxious that colleges and semi- 
naries should be under the control of teachers of no church 
connection, lest sectarianism might be taught, may learn the. 
displeasure of God in the character of their pupils, compared 
with the high and refined moral feelings, christian benevolence, 
activity, and usefulness of those educated under the religious 
instruction, and praycrfulness of another class of teachers. 

After these facts, it will be our business to enquire, is the 
education of our daughters equally important in this only safe 



& 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 23 

and practicable plan of education ? Would any educational 
arrangement be complete had it not its institutions, and did it 
not extend its facilities to females, as well as to the other sex ? 
We reply in the negative. We believe that females can co- 
operate in carrying out the designs of all education — the 
ameliorating the condition of the world in the great works of 
charity and benevolence, to the glory of God ; and in a na- 
tional and political sense, establishing the everlasting happi- 
ness, and glory, and greatness of a nation. .... ■ 



CHAPTER II 



The Interests of a Country, the Progress of the Church, 
TnE Peace, Virtue, and Intelligence of a Community, 
the Happiness of the Family, depend upon the Educa- 
tion of Mothers : — 

" Mothers and Schoolmasters plant the seed of nearly all 
the good and evil that exists in the world." — Dr. Rush. 

"France needs mothers." — Madam Campan to Napoleon. 

"If Christianity were driven from the earth, her last re- 
treat would be at the fireside, and her last audience ivould be 
children gathering around the knees of a mother." 

In the great work of education we are not left in the dark 
by the Great Being who created us, in reference to the man- 
ner in which we are to proceed in the work, neither in refer- 
ence to the time when we are to begin it. His language is: — 
" Train up a child in the way he should go ; and when he it 
old he will not depart from it." — Pro v. 22, 6. 

And these words ivhich I command thee this day, shall be in 
thy heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, 
and when thou ivalkest by the way, and when thou liest down, 
and when thou riscst up." — Deut. 6, 6-7. 

" Whom shall he teach knowledge ? and whom shall he 
make to understand doctrine ? Them that are weaned from 
the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be 
upon precept, precept upon precept ; line upon line, line upon 
line ; here a Utile and there a little" — Isa. 28, 9-10. 

" Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord." — Eph. 6, 4. 

Under this economy of instruction, the mother's instrumen- 
tality, and responsible position, is brought into view. Her 
sphere is, to make the first impression, and give the first 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 25 

moulding to the infant mind, as its susceptibilities arise, and 
its consciousness awakes. Her's is the privilege of teaching 
the first command of God, that the child may comprehend. 

We will now turn our attention to the facts in the history 
the Bible, in reference to the early maternal influence upon 
the minds of the great men of God of the Ancient Church. — 
In the early trainings of most of those men, the mother's name 
is prominently mentioned, not that their fathers were absolved 
from the parental obligation of instruction and duty, but it ia 
done to show us the power of the mother's agency. We have 
the mother of Samuel in the act of devotion ; her words un- 
heard ; her lips seem to move, and the earnestness upon her 
countenance, indicating her first prayer for her illustrious son. 
In the New Testament we have Eunice educating her son, from, 
a child, to know the Holy Scriptures, which were able to make 
him wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus. But 
how many of the mother's acts, in the slow process of impress- 
ing truth, — line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a 
little and there a little — upon the object of her solicitude, are 
not made the subject of public record ! We know not how 
much is attributable to Sarah's piety and maternal instruction, 
that Isaac became the child of promise, and the type of Christ ; 
to Rebecca, for the peaceful termination of Jacob's long life,, 
with his prophetic blessings upon his sons ; to Rachsel, for 
that distinction which Joseph received for piety and filial af- 
fection over his ten brethren ; to Jochebed, for her resignation 
to the providence of God, in anticipating the death of her little 
son, when exposed to the Nile, and the intelligence and piety 
of her children, Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. 

Whilst the mothers of ancient Israel looked for the Desire 
of all nations, with the probability that the little son of every 
cradle might be, " to us a child is given," their children be- 
came the Patriarchs and Prophets in the Church, the Ex- 
pounders of the Sacred Oracles, and the Rulers of God's 
people. Their mothers' unwritten history is ody known in 



66 A TLEA FOR FE.MA'.r, EDUCATION; 

the intelligence, the holy lives, and the distinction of their 
great sons. 

The plan of God is plainly laid down in the Bible, and the 
names of many pious mothers recorded, their prayers alluded 
to, and their teachings described, the history of their children 
written, giving an experience of three thousand years, of the 
invariable result of a connection between the mother's faith- 
fulness, and the children's piety and distinction. God has 
promised it, and he has verified his promises to all "who have 
been faithful. 

Again, at first view, we would hardly think it necessary to 
complete the Sacred Canon, that the names of the mothers of 
wicked men, and Kings of Israel, who "did evil in the sight 
of the Lord," should be so minutely recorded. But all scrip- 
ture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
eousness: even the names of those females and their genealo- 
gy is important. They give us a reason of the wickedness of 
some of the men of the Bible. They point out the connection 
between the character of the mothers, and that of their off- 
spring. The mother of Absalom was Maachah, the daughter 
of Talmai, king of Geshur (2 Saml. 3, 3). Rehoboam's mo- 
ther was Naamah, an Ammonitess (1 Kings 14, 21). In 2 
Chron. 22, 2-3, we have the following account of the mother 
of Ahaziah : " Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he 
began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His 
mother's name also was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri. He 
also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab : For his mother 
was his counsellor to do wickedly." 

The mothers of the present generation now have in their 
arms the population of the next generation — Legislators, Law- 
yers, Physicians, Ministers of the Gospel, Merchants, Me- 
chanics, Farmers ; also, the righteous, the pure, the wise, the 
profane, the sabbath-breakers, drunkards, gamblers, and mur- 
derers, of the next generation. From the foregoing Bible 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 27 

facts, it will depend mainly upon the prayers, the intelligence 
and faithfulness of mothers ; or their negligence, ignorance, 
and bad example, in deciding into which one of the above 
classes their offspring will enter their destiny. 

" To you is made over the awfully important trust of infus- 
ing the first principles of piety into the tender minds of those 
who may one day be called to instruct, not families merely, 
but districts ; to influence not individuals, but senates. Your 
private exertions may at this moment be contributing to the 
future happiness, your domestic neglect, to the future ruin, of 
your country. And may you never forget, in this your early 
instruction of your offspring, nor they, in the future applica- 
tion of it, that religion is the only sure ground of morals ; that 
private principle is the only solid basis of public virtue. 0, 
think that they both may be fixed or forfeited forever, accord- 
ing to the use you are making of that power which God has 
delegated to you, and of which he will demand a strict account. 
By his blessing on your pious labors, may both [sons and 
daughters hereafter 'arise and call you blessed.' And in the 
great day of general account, may every christian mother be 
enabled through divine grace, to say, with humble confidence 
to her Maker and •Redeemer, ' Behold the children whom thou 
hast given me !' * 

" Mother, such is the trust confided to you. The child con- 
secrated to Grod, taught as it may be, cared for, prayed for, 
restrained from -evil, prompted to good, presented with a pious 
and holy example in yourself, who can say that it will not at- 
tain to the adoption of a son or daughter of the Lord Al- 
mighty ? In what delightful fields of knowledge may it not 
roam ? Amid what products of infinite love may it not ex- 
patiate ? What a progression in all that is beautiful, holy and 
glorious may lie before it ! If, through your labors, such an 
inheritance for your child be possible, will you be wanting in 
faithfulness to your dying day !" f 

* Hannah More's Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, 
f American Messenger, July, 1851, 



28 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

The Lord's plan of maternal duty, is, in order to be success* 
ful not only to impart timely instruction, but accompany 
instruction with sincere prayer. "I commit this cuild to 
God and His CHURCH," said a dying mother, about thirty-five 
years ago, of the youngest of her four little ones. Ere long 
the father also died ; then the uncle to whom the child was 
committed ; but God's eye ivas upon Mm. He was placed 
with a farmer ; the mother was forgotten ; but in the revival 
of 1831, he was converted to Christ. By and by, certain 
persons thought that he had talents, and proposed that he 
should study for the ministry. He entered college, graduated, 
became a tutor, and is now a faithful and efficient pastor in 
Massachusetts. The other three still live, and are hopefully 
pious and useful," The above is headed, The Mother's 
Prayer, in the American Messenger, May, 1851. 

The following facts are given in the Life of Monica, the 
mother of St, Augustine : His father, Patricius, was an infi* 
del, and a man of morose disposition. His mother had been 
instructed in the Christian religion, by a pious old nurse. — 
She spared no pains to instruct her little boy, Augustine, in 
Christianity. From his earliest years he was accustomed to 
daily prayer ; and at times he appeared to engage in it with 
intelligence and delight. Affection to his mother appeared to 
be a ruling principle of his heart. But he became enslaved 
by the wildest passions of human nature as he grew up to 
manhood, under the influences of the heathenism of the fourth 
century, by which he was surrounded. It is said of his mo- 
ther : " On one occasion, finding her son had embraced 
dangerous errors, she earnestly entreated a certain Bishop to 
reason him out of them. But though he was by no means 
disposed to evade such a task when there was any hope of 
success, yet now he entirely declined, saying, ' your son is too 
much elated at present, too much captivated with the novelty 
of his speculations, to listen to arguments. Be patient in 
duty ; continue to pray for him, and he will be brought to se« 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 29 

Ma errors.' But the heart of a mother can not rest when she 
realizes the salvation of her child is at stake. She persisted 
m her request with many tears. At last the worthy Bishop, 
somewhat out of patience with her importunity, replied : 
* Leave me, good woman ; it is impossible that a child of suck 
prayers should perish V This answer impressed her as if it 
had been a voice from heaven ; and with quenchless ardor she 
sought the conversion of her son, even in the darkest hours of 
his apostasy." Augustine says, "while I was rolling in pol- 
lution of sin, sometimes indeed attempting to rise, yet still 
sinking deeper and deeper, she persisted in prayer, and never 
ceased to hope." " Thus, through persevering prayer, and 
the clear exhibitions of sacred truth, accompanied by tho 
power of the Holy Spirit, this man of pride, of sensuality, of 
unhallowed ambition and supreme selfishness, was brought low 
in the dust of humiliation before God." 

"When parental influence does not convert," says Richard 
Cecil, " it hampers, it hangs on the wheels of evil. I had a 
pious mother who dropped things in my way — I could never 
rid myself of them. I was a professed infidel; but then I 
liked to be an infidel in company, rather than when alone — I 
was wretched when by myself. These principles and maxims 
(of his mother) spoiled my pleasure. With my , companions I 
would sometimes stifle them ; like embers, we kept one an- 
other warm. Besides, I was a sort of hero ; I had beguiled 
several of my associates into my opinions, and I had to main- 
tain a character before them ; but I could not divest myself of 
my better principles. I went with one of my companions to 
gee ; he could laugh heartily, but I could not ; the ridi- 
cule on regeneration was high sport to him — to me it was 
none ; it could not move my features. He knew no difference 
between regeneration and transubstantiation — I did. I knew 
there was such a thing. I was afraid and ashamed to laugh 
at it. Parental influence thus cleaves to a man — it 

HARASSES HIM — IT THROWS ITSELF CONSTANTLY IN HIS WAY." 



30 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

His biographer Bays of him : " Ho was a child of many tears, 
instructions, admonitions, and prayers; and though now a 
prodigal, he was to be recovered of his wickedness!" Cecil 
remarks, " I shall never forget standing by the bed of my 
sick mother. 'Are you not afraid to die?' I asked her; 'No ! 
No!' ' Why does the uncertainty of another state give you 
no concern?' 'Because God has said to me, 'Fear not, 
when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee ; and 
through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.' ' The re- 
membrance of this scene has oftentimes since drawn an ardent 
prayer from me, that I might die the death of the righteous. "* 
A Mother of Missionaries. — Mrs. Joanna Lathrop, who 
recently died in New York at the residence of her son, Kev. 
William A. Hallock, Secretary, in her 80th year, was the 
mother of Mrs. Harriet L. Winslow, whose memoir is pub- 
lished by the Society, and of Mrs. Charlotte H. Cherry, Mrs, 
Elizabeth C. Hutchings, and Mrs. Harriet Joanna Perry, all 
of whom were missionaries in Ceylon, and three of whom, with 
the Rev. Mr. Perry, now lie burried in the church-yard at 
Oodooville. She was also the grandmother of Mrs. Harriet 
W. Dulles, daughter of Mrs. Winslow, now Missionary at 
Madras. When Mrs. Lathrop had reached the age of thirty- 
seven, no member of the family had professed Christ. The 
eldest daughter, since Mrs. Winslow, at twelve became de- 
votedly pious, and at thirteen, in 1809, her parents went 
with her to the Lord's table. Thirty-two years ago, in 
1819, this daughter, at the age of twenty-three, sailed for 
India, with the llcv. Mr. Winslow, and Rev. Messrs. Scuddcr, 
Spaulding, and Woodward. The first intelligence from them 
was "a revival at sea." The family became interested in 
Missions. The three young sisters of Mrs. Winslow, and 
lately her daughter who- received an accomplished education 
in a christian family in New York, imbibed her spirit and 
followed her to India. Mrs. Lathrop's eight children all be- 
came pious, and at her death all her grand-children who had 



Remains of llie Kev. Richard Cecil. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 31 

come to years of discretion had hope in Christ."* "These 
are my jewels?" said Cornelia, the illustrious mother of the 
Gracchi, pointing to her noble sons. But how much more can 
a faithful christian mother, like Mrs. Lathrop, point to her 
children and grand-children as she stands upon the borders of 
four score, and say " these who dedicated themselves to the 
great work -of evangelizing the world, are my jewels — they 
will be jewels in my crown at the great day of judgment. " 

"The mother of Saml. J. Mills was the daughter of Samuel 
Bobbins, of a respectable family, originally from Weathers- 
field, in Hartford county, Connecticut. She was a woman of 
very exemplary character and pre-eminent piety, and one 
whose memory is embalmed in the hearts of all who knew 
her." She says of her son, "I have had peculiar solicitudes 
respecting this child. Even before its birth, I dedicated it to 
the Lord ; and then engaged that it should be unreservedly 
devoted to his glory. And when the little immortal was com- 
mitted to my arms, Avith many prayers and tears did I renew 
my engagements, till it was strongly impressed on my mind, 
that God had heard my cry and accepted my offering." — 
" Could we, without sacrilege, enter the sanctuary of a moth- 
er's bosom, iye might whisper a tale that would account for the 
distinguished usefulness with which God has condescended to 
favor some of the best of men." 

One day whilst his good mother was instructing him, Avhen 
a boy, and asked him how his state of mind was, he raised his 
head and with eyes streaming with tears, exclaimed, " that 
I had never been born ! that I had never been born ! For 
two years I have been sorry God ever made me." What re- 
ply could such a mother make to such a disclosure ? " My son," 
said she, " you are born, and you can never throw off your 

existence, nor your everlasting accountability for all your 
conduct." 

He was absent from home at the Theological Seminary when 
his mother died, and upon his arrival at her grave, he says, 

* American Messenger, July, 1851. 



82 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

"her grave was newly covered — it was my mother's! Here I 
gave vent to the most impassioned burst of wo. I wept not 
that my mother had gone to glory, but that I should sec her 
face no more ; no more should hear her warning voice ; no 
more should share her prayers." Mr. Mills, the child of 
such maternal prayers, became the originator of the American 
Board of Foreign Missions. 

" The Rev. Leigh Richmond was born at Liverpool, on Janu- 
ary 29th, 1772. It was his privilege to have a most estimable 
mother ; endowed with a superior understanding, which had 
been cultivated and improved by an excellent education, and 
subsequent reading. In addition to her natural talents and 
acquirements, she was piously disposed. 

This affectionate and conscientious parent anxiously in- 
structed him, from his infancy, in the Holy Scriptures, and in 
the principles of true religion, according to the best of her 
ability ; a debt which was subsequently repaid by her son, who 
became the happy and honored instrument of imparting to his 
beloved mother clearer and more enlarged views of divine 
truth than were generally prevalent during the last generation. 
It seems highly probable that the seeds of piety were then 
sown, which in a future period, and under circumstances of a 
providential nature, were destined to produce a rich and an 
abundant harvest." * 

"Every one who has thought on the subject, must know how 
great is the influence of the female character, especially in the 
sacred relations of wife and mother. I had a vivid recollec- 
tion, says the Rev. Richard Knill, in his Memoir of Mrs. 
Loveless, of the effects of maternal influence. My honored 
mother was a religious woman, and she watched over and in- 
structed me as pious mothers are accustomed to do. Alas ! I 
often forgot her admonitions; but, in my most thoughtless 
days, I never lost the impressions which her holy example had 
made on my mind. After spending a large portion of my life 



Memoirs of the Rev. Legb Richmond, bj Rcr. T. S. Giirnshawe. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 33 

in foreign lands, I returned again to visit my native village. 
Both my parents died while I was in Russia, and their house is 
now occupied by my brother. The furniture still remains the 
same as when I was a boy, and at night I was accommodated 
with the same bed in which I had often slept before ; but my 
busy thoughts would not let me sleep. I was thinking how 
God had led me through the journey of life. At last the light 
of the morning darted through the little window, and then my 
eye caught a sight of the spot where my sainted mother, forty 
years before, took my hand and said, ' Come, my dear, kneel 
down with me, and I will go to prayers.' This completely over- 
came me. I seemed to hear the very tones of her voice. I 
recollected some of her expressions, and I burst into tears, and 
arose from my bed, and fell upon my knees just on the spot 
where my mother kneeled, and thanked God that I had once a 
praying mother. And oh ! if every parent could feel what I 
felt then, I am sure they would pray with their children as 
well as pray for them." * 

"A Happy Father and Mother. — The Rev. Dr. Scudder, 
having returned to his labors in India with re-invigorated 
health, and accompanied by his second son, on being called to 
proceed from Madras to Madura, writes under date of April 6, 
1847: 'Last night, Mrs. Scudder and myself took leave of 
our beloved children and missionary associates, and left Ma- 
dras for Madura. One of my sons remains in Madras, the 
other is about to proceed to Ceylon. A highly favored father 
and mother are we, to have children to take leave of under 
the circumstances which now exist ; children who have conse- 
crated themselves to the great work of laboring for the good 
of the perishing heathen ; of laboring to bring back this dark 
land to the service of Jehovah Jesus. I have but one prayer 
to offer in behalf of the six sons whom I left in America, and 



-Cyclopedia of Moral and Religious Anecdotes. 



;J4 A TLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

that is, that they may all follow their brothers to this, with 
hearts alive to the interests of its teeming population." * 

"What a blessed and happy mother that will be at the great 
day of the coming judgment, when they will " rise up and call 
her blessed," because she prayed for, and instructed a little 
son who became instrumental, when grown up, in " turning 
many unto righteousness." 

" Where simple hearted piety is the most prevalent in 
community, there the family religion is the most frequent, the 
most pure, the most happy, and the most prosperous. Reli- 
gion never dwells in a community Avithout dwelling pre- 
eminently in the family circles, and hallowing these nurseries 
of piety. There arc not wanting illustrations of this fact. — 
The history of Scotland, and the older States of New England, 
occur as among the more prominent modern demonstrations of 
this truth." f 

Of all European countries maintaining a national church, 
Scotland has perhaps preserved the piety and vitality of reli- 
gion to the greatest extent since the Reformation. As an 
instance of it, the Free Church of Scotland, after its separa- 
tion from the National Church, composed of seven hundred 
and twenty-two congregations, contributed, in four years, six 
and a fourth millions of dollars to benevolent purposes. This 
superior activity and liberality is OAving to the intelligence of 
the mothers of the church, and their faithfulness in fireside 
training, and Sabbath teachings. It is attributed to Robert 
Hall to have said, that if every copy of the Bible were annihi- 
lated, he would go to Scotland and get the ladies of the church 
to write one from memory — in allusion to the extended Bible 
knowledge of those females. Although there is Avickcdness 
and drunkenness enough in Scotland, yet there are charac- 
teristics of the people, of a recuperative nature, which Ave will 
illustrate by a few facts, showing the effect of faithful family 

' American Mt>««en<rpr, March, 184S- 

t Heavon, ihe Model of a Christian Family, by II • v Erastus Hopkins. 



A 'PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 6ii> 

instruction. Hannah More says, " Sir John Fielding (a man 
not likely to be suspected of over-strictness) assured a partic- 
ular friend of the author, that, during his long administration 
<>f justice in Bow street, only six Scotchmen were brought be- 
fore him. The remark did not proceed from any national 
partiality in the magistrate, but was produced by him in proof 
of the effect of a sober and religious education among the low- 
er ranks on their morals and conduct." 

" The Rev. Dr. Waugh, was enlarging one evening at a pub- 
lic Sabbath School meeting, on the blessings of education ; and, 
turning to his native country (Scotland) for proof, told his aud- 
itors the following anecdote : ' At board-day, at the Peniten- 
tiary at Mill-bank, the food of the prisoners was discussed, and 
it was proposed to give Scotch broth tAyice a week. Some of 
the governors were not aware what sort of broth the barley 
made, and desired to taste some before they sanctioned the 
measure. One of the officers was accordingly directed to go 
to the wards and bring a Scotch woman, competent to the cu- 
linary task, to perform it in the kitchen. After long delay, 
the board supposing the broth was preparing all the while, the 
officer returned, and told their honors that there tvas no Scotch 
woman in the house.' "* We may go to any community in the 
Christian world where faithful maternal instruction is attend- 
ed to, and its effects are seen in the morals and intelligence of 
the people. " Our Country needs Mothers." 

"You (females) can exert an influence which shall wake the 
energies of a sleeping generation. You can rouse to benevo- 
lent exertion, and concentrate the streams of charity, that 
flow to fertilize the wastes of a ruined world. 

" But the duty of mothers, is, if possible, still greater. Im- 
mortal beings are committed to your care, perhaps to be saved 
or lost by your influence. They already feel the effects of 
your example, and will probably feel them more and more for 



Cyclopedia of Moral and Religious Anecdoies. 



3G A FLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

ever. From you, rather than the father, or any other befog 
on earth, they will take their character. You can render them 
idle, ungovernable, selfish, or malevolent. You can teach them 
to be covetous,, proud, envious, sensorious, unkind and inhos- 
pitable. You can form them into a character hated of men, 
and detested by angels and God. Oh ! none like you can 
qualify them for everlasting burnings. Or you can teach thein 
industry, subordination and benevolence ; can make them gen- 
erous, modest, prudent, kind and hospitable ; can, -with the 
promised blessings, form them to a character approved of men 
and lovely to angels and to God. Oh ! none like you can qual- 
ify them to live in heaven. God has given you that influence, 
that authority, that affection and access, which places your off- 
spring at your disposal. To whom will they listen when they 
will not hear the voice of a mother ? "When her government 
is despised, who shall control them ? Who shall love them 
sufficiently to teach them, when maternal affection cools ? — 
AVho shall find access to their consciences and their hearts, 
when barred against the approach of a mother ? Mother ! the 
name is very sweet. In all the majesty of maternal love, she 
can sit down by the heart and conscience of her child, and 
shape, and mould, and temper it almost to her pleasure. The 
world can be excluded, and every passion hushed to calmness, 
by her maternal sweetness and authority; while in the midst 
of the calm, she can teach them divine wisdom, fire them with 
benevolent affections, and give their minds a high and hea- 
venly aspect." * 

k - The influence of your sex exerts itself over the earliest 
periods of rational life. The first being that the child knows 
is its mother. To the young heart, the mother is the first 
object of affection and reverence. Her eyes and her voice, 
her tears and smiles, her caresses and reproofs, are the subjects 
of infant observation ; and these present the earliest lesson 
that the young immortal ever learns. From the very nature 

■ Waiks of Rev. Daniel A. Clark. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION- 37 

of the case, mother's must impress their own image on their 
children. The feelings, passions, and expressions of the mo- 
ther, will become imperceptibly, and almost necessarily, the 
•feelings, passions, and expressions of the child. To mothers, 
more than to any other human beings, is committed the im- 
portant business of moulding the intellect and heart of every 
•successive generation. This talent God himself has lodged 
with you that arc mothers ; and it is a talent which can not be 
wrapped "in a napkin," or buried "in the earth," with im- 
punity. How full of interest is the thought, that the infant 
who lies in the cradle, or in its mother's arms, is now receiv- 
ing the outlines which may form the character of the future 
man or woman ! Life or death may be conveyed in the ear- 
liest accents which are remembered from maternal lips. The 
pious mother may put forth an influence, which blessed of God 
may save her child. The mother who is living without God, 
and without a Scriptural hope, though her example may not 
be that of direct and positive irreligion, may put forth an in- 
fluence which will destroy the soul of that little one who is 
thrown helpless and ignorant, upon her care and instruction. 
If females were all Christians, and such Christians as they 
ought to be, a hope might be cherished that the world would 
soon be converted. The next generation might live in a new 
earth, and, as a part of their employment, celebrate the final 
victories of the cross." * 

"I have had the pleasure of seeing many," says Mary 
Lyon, speaking of educated females, " who have enjoyed these 
privileges (of education) occupying the place of mothers. I 
have noticed with peculiar interest the cultivated and good 
common sense, the correct reasoning, the industry and perse- 
verance, the patience, meekness, and gentleness of many of 
them. I have felt that if all our common farmers, men of 
plain, good common sense, could go through the country and 
witness these mothers in their own families, and compare them 

"* Female Influence and Obligations by Rev. Nathan S. S. Bemsn.D. D* 



38 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

■with others in similar circumstances, they 'would no longer 
consider the money expended on motliers as thrown away." * 
Now, when colleges arc every where established, and theo- 
logical seminaries endowed at great expense for the education 
of ministers of the gospel, that they may be competent to 
teach and attend intelligently to their responsible duties — 

" Which might fill an angel's heart, 
And filled the Savior's hands : " 

when physicians are required to be educated because human 
life depends upon their skill — when men are sent to colleges 
and superior schools, and money spent upon their education 
that they may be qualified to occupy responsible positions in 
political and civil life — why not educate mothers, whose duties 
arid responsibilities are equally great ? 

The most intelligent and sincere men and women of all 
countries write their testimony based upon observation and 
experience, in reference to the immense influence of educated, 
pious and prayerful mothers, in establishing the character of 
their families. They control the destiny of successive genera- 
tions in infancy for weal or wo ; the virtues and happiness, 
the vice and shame of nations depend, in great part, upon 
them ; they make the church rejoice over its prosperity, and 
mourn over its adversities. 

In view of this we are highly culpable provided no liberal 
arrangements are made for their education. We must have 
Female Seminaries, and superior schools, in every town and 
populous neighborhood in the country, and the ablest and most 
faithful instructors employed to fill their professors' chairs, 
where mothers are to he educated. 

Sheridan wrote, "Women govern us ; let us try to render 
them perfect. The more they are enlightened, so much the 
more we shall bo. On the cultivation of the minds of women, 
depends the wisdom of men." Intelligent mothers will be 



L.io of Mary Lyon, by Edward Hitchcock, D. D. L. L. D. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 39 

likely to have intelligent families. Religious mothers, religious 
families, and the contrary. 

How many mothers, now surrounded by families, who would 
by no means be considered ignorant women, have not even a 
correct understanding of the import of the Ten Command- 
ments ; hence their children are indulged in the violation of 
them. They are permitted to be disobedient and disrespectful 
to their parents ; regular violators of the Sabbath ; guilty of 
lying and profanity ; their temper and passions unrestrained, 
and their attention to religious duties left to themselves. — 
How many thousands of mothers are there who have no con- 
sciousness whatever of maternal duties beyond the common 
secular household affairs — who are not capable of expressing 
an intelligent view of the plainest passages of the Bible, much 
less able, as every mother ought to be, of simplifying its truths, 
and adapting them to the mind of the child, "line upon line, 
precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." 

It might be thought that too much prominence is given to 
mothers in descriptions of parental duty ; for the father of a 
family is equally responsible, and may, to a great extent, 
counteract the mother's influence. But it is the mother of 
the two parents who is more constantly with her family, from 
the sphere of her duties ; she has almost the entire control of 
her children during their earliest years ; their first impressions 
are the mother's. ! for such mothers as Sarah, Rebecca, 
Rachael, Jochebed, Hannah, Eunice, Monica, the mother of 
Richard Cecil, Mrs. Lathrop, the missionary mother ; the mo- 
ther of Samuel J. Mills, of Leigh Richmond, of Richard 
Knill, — what an impression the light of their education and 
the power of their prayers would make upon our rising fami- 
lies. The combined influence of a number of such mothers 
would call salvation from the Lord upon a perishing country. 



CHAPTER III. 



Woman's Usefulness will be Enhanced in Proportion to 
her Education — In the Cause or Missions — Tract So- 
ciety's Operations — The Temperance Reformation — 
Works of Beneficence — Sabbath Schools-In the work 
of General Instruction : — 

" I will say again, that when the Savior came, woman re- 
joiced in him, before either man or angel. I read that not 
even man did give unto Christ so much as one groat ; hut the 
women followed him and ministered unto him of their sub- 
stance. It was a woman that washed his feet with tears, and 
a woman that anointed his body to the burial. They were 
women that wept when he was going to the cross ; and women 
that followed him from the cross, and that sat by his sepulchre 
when he was buried. They were women that were first with 
him at his resurrection-morn, and women that brought tidings 
first to the disciples that he was risen from the dead. Women, 
therefore, are highly favored, and show by these things that 
they are sharers in the grace of life." — John Bunyan. 

" Thus her compassion woman shows. 

Beneath the line tier ads are these ; 
Nor the wide waste of Lapland's stio'vs 

Can herwann flow of pily freeze." — Ckabbs. 

"And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him 
for the saying of the Avoman, which testified, lie told me all that 
ever I did." — JoiIN 4, 39. 

" Help those women which labored with me in the gospel." — 
Phil. 4, 3. 

In comparing this passage with Paul's instruction to Timo- 
thy : Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. — 
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 41 

over the man, but to be in silence, for Adam was first formed 
then Eve — the Apostle did not mean that those women preach- 
ed the gospel publicly. 

Doddridge's paraphrase on this passage is : " that thou 
wouldst assist those pious -women who labored with me in the 
gospel — in such service as suit their sex and station." 

The question is, how can well-educated, pious females assist 
at the present time in the extension of the gospel ; or, in what 
way can they make themselves useful in the great work of 
teaching the world Christianity, and in carrying out all its 
practical duties, of charity, beneficence, and love ? 

First : They can assist in the extension of the gospel among 
the heathen in Foreign Missions. 

"It will be your duty, and I hope your pleasure, to aid all 
the operations of benevolence, especially the propagation of 
the gospel light. This is a work in which your sex have a spe- 
cial interest. You owe your freedom, your influence and all 
your comforts to the gospel. Advance a single furlong beyond 
its light, and you find the female sex in a state of perpetual 
servitude, treated like beasts of burden, and excluded from 
all the joys of civil and social life. Could they but know the 
blessings that fall to your lot, and the reason why they are so 
oppressed and miserable, they would raise a cry for the gospel 
loud and eloquent as the shrieks of death. They would not 
rest till they could place in the hands of their oppressors the 
volume which is the charter of your liberties. They too would 
be free, respected and happy." * 

Females have not been insensible to the favors they have re- 
alized from the power of the gospel — they have not shown in- 
gratitude to the Saviour. From the time the little Hebrew 
maid was instrumental in the introduction of the knowledge of 
the God of her people into Syria, in the days of Naaman the 
leper, to the present time, their names are associated with the 

* Daniel A. Clark. 



42 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION". 

work of Missions, and their efficacy runs parallel in import- 
ance with that of the other sex in the propagation of the 
gospel. 

"Pious women have always done much in the kingdom of 
Christ. They followed the Son of God and ministered to His 
necessities, while here below. In the days of the apostles, hon- 
orable mention is made of their activity and usefulness in the 
Church of God. Indeed, in every age the progress of the gos- 
pel has been essentially aided by their pious and devoted la- 
bors. Who can compute, this side of heaven, the influence of 
Hannah More in favor of the gospel." * She was said by anr 
other to have been " the most brilliant female ornament of 
Christian literature of the age, " and all her influence and la- 
bors were exerted in behalf of Christianity after her conver- 
sion, though she was not directly engaged in the work of Mis- 
sions. 

" When will the name of Harriet Newell be forgotten in the 
East, or cease to be associated, through the world, with'tha. 
labor, and toil, and triumphs of the Missionary cause." f Thii 
devoted and distinguished young lady w T as converted at the age 
of thirteen, whilst attending Bradford Academy, and then re- 
marked, in reference to it, " there was an hour when the light 
of divine truth irradiated my benighted heart— when I could 
rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God' of my salvation. I 
could willingly then renounce the world, for it lost all its pow- 
er to charm. How sweet was the idea of suffering for Jesus!" 
Under this affection of mind she renounced the society of her 
friends and her home for the heathen world, and accompanied 
her husband with the first American Missionaries to India. 
She died at the age of nineteen, and her remains lie buried at 
Port Louis, on the Isle of France. 

Will the Church ever forget the name of the first missiona- 
ry to Burmah — the talented and accomplished Ann Hasseltine 



*Dr. N. S. S. Beman. 
f Ibid. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 4& 

Judson ? Will the Church ever forget the privations and per- 
ils of the first missions to India ? In view of this, the letter 
which Dr. Judson wrote to her father, asking his consent to 
their marriage, contained the following language : — " I have 
now to ask, whether you can consent to her departure to a hea- 
then land ; whether you can consent to her exposure to the 
dangers of the ocean ; to every kind of want and distress ; to 
degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death ? 
Can you consent to all this for the sake of Him, who left His- 
heavenly home and died for her and you ?" Her biographer 
says :— "For beauty, talents, piety, and dignity of demeanor, 
and perseverance of mind, Mrs. Judson has had hut few equals. 
She acquired languages with great facility, and used her ac- 
quirements to the best purpose of her calling. She wrote with 
ease and elegance. She was a pattern of conjugal affection 
and missionary ardor. She was chivalrous and romantic with- 
out being giddy and vain. She was engaged in a great work,, 
and she went fearlessly on to death. She shrunk from no dan- 
ger, nor turned back from any peril. She saw martyrdom be- 
fore her, but it was surrounded by beautiful visions. She saw 
the seeds of the gospel planted in a heathen land, and she be- 
lieved, that if it was long in springing up, it would in time 
flourish, and break assunder the chains of superstition and sin. 
Every day confirms the wisdom of her anticipations. 

"No female missionary ever passed through such scenes of 
suffering, or made such efforts of benevolence in sickness and 
amidst perils and difficulties of every kind. When at a future 
time the gospel shall fully triumph over the superstitions of the 
East, her name will be honored throughout Burmah, as it is 
already honored throughout the christian and civilized world. 
Her grave is under a large tree called Hopia, or hop-tree, and 
will be visited by christian missionaries, as a place made sacred 
by the ashes of a woman of no ordinary character." 

The great field open to female enterprise in Foreign Mis- 



44 A TLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION". 

sions is the school-room, where children are taken from child- 
hood and instructed in religion whilst they are taught to read. 
This mode of instruction is continued from the first school to 
the highest seminary, and here female benevolence displays 
itself in its greatness, as hundreds of children of their own sex, 
degraded by heathenism, are, by their labors, elevated, through 
education and religion, to virtue, usefulness and the hope of 
eternal life. Thus it is said of Mrs. Winslow's labors in her 
female school at Oodooville, in Ceylon : "all the girls who had 
passed through a regular course in the school, or were far ad- 
vanced in it previous to Mrs. Winslow's death, had then become 
hopefully pious, and were members of the church ; and, what 
was very pleasing, no one of them, tivcnty-four in number, had 
dishonored the profession." * 

Another fact in reference to this lady's labors in the gospel 
was published in the New York Observer. "A sailor, with a 
a large athletic form, dark eyes, and death-like paleness, came 
into a village in Indiana. He had been the wayward son of 
a praying New England mother, and under the influence of 
incurable disease, had left the sea, and reached the home of 
his only sister. Here, away from the influence of ungodly 
companions, he reviewed his life, the privileges he had abused, 
and the mercy he had slighted, till, in the agony of despair, 
lie sought and found the only Redeemer. A smile of heaven- 
ly joy now lit up his pallid features; his tongue was unloosed, 
and he conversed freely on the preciousness of the Savior he 
had found. He spoke, too, with deep emotion of the efforts 
that had been made for his salvation on board a ship. He 
took deep delight in speaking of the lamented Harriet Wins- 
low, and her voyage to India on board the Indus, in which 
vessel he was then an officer. 'I will remember,' said he, his 
dying eye brightening with animation — 'I will remember that 
devoted missionary band, who then sailed to their field of la- 



Memoir of Harriet L. YVinslow. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION, 45 

bor in a vessel. Mrs. Winslow, in particular, I can never for- 
get. She was so kind and faithful, so persevering and con- 
stant in her endeavors to arrest our attention, and lead us to 
reflect on our awful condition, that I have always wondered 
why I did not then become a christian, with some others of 
the crew. But I stifled all my convictions, and put oif all the 
important concerns of my soul. Some of the tracts she gave 
me I read, others I threw away, but I could never throw away 
or get rid of her faithful admonitions. They have always fol- 
lowed me. In the ocean storms — amid the fierce howlings of 
the tempest, when a yawning eternity was at my feet — her 
sweet, kind, voice of admonition was sounding in my ear, 
wherever I went among my profane associates, on ship-board, 
or in the haunts of vice on shore. When I considered how she 
had left, forever, the home of her childhood, and her dear 
mother and friends, forsaking all the pleasant associations of 
her early life, to go and spend her days among an ignorant,, 
barbarous people, I could not withstand such arguments against 
my scepticism. There must certainly be a reality in the reli- 
gion of Christ. ' During his last illness, he spoke frequently 
with tears of gratitude of Mrs. Winslow and of hoping to 
meet her in heaven." 

In addition to collecting funds at home for the support of 
missions, they have accompanied the missionary to every cli- 
mate, and participated in all his dangers and privations, among 
the heathens. Their delicate limbs lie buried under the palm 
trees of India, in Africa, the Isles of every ocean and are cov- 
ered by the snows of Greenland and Labrador, where they 
have "labored in the gospel." 

Second: Their agency in the Tract Society's operations, is 
expressed in the article headed Female Charity, in the 
American Messenger, 1848. " What would become of the 
world but for the piety of woman ? ' Last at the cross, and 
firstat the sepulchre;' she has been first in the beginning, and 
last in deserting any good enterprise for spreading the Re- 



46 A FLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

deemer's kingdom. The Marys and Dorcases of the Church, 
though in modern retirement, may bear as rich a reward as 
the Peters and Thomases. Few institutions of gospel benevo- 
lence could carry forward their operations on anything like 
their present scale without the prayers and sacrifices of their 
female friends. 

" The Tract Society, among others, owes much to its gentle 
friends. Some of its best publications are from female pens. 
A large proportion of the thousands who carry its Tracts 
monthly to the houses of the people, are of this class. And 
its treasury has often been replenished in time of need by the 
self-denial of Christian ladies. Thousands in the humbler 
walks have given evidence of their strong attachment to the 
cause. May blessings from on high rest upon them, and on 
the destitute and perishing they seek to save." 

Third : In the Temperance Cause, woman is a help-meet. 
She has been among the greatest sufferers from the vice of 
drunkenness, and in every movement for its suppression her 
agency has been foremost. Her private maternal instruction 
in the family circle has, perhaps, been the most efficient means 
for the maintenance of society and total abstinence that can 
be exerted. The Rev. Dr. Mott says : — " Under God I owe 
my early education — nay, all that I have been or am, to the 
tutorage of a pious mother. It was — peace to her sainted 
spirit — it was her monitory voice that first taught my young 
heart to feel that there was danger in the intoxicating cup, 
and that safety lay in abstinence. And as no one is more in- 
debted to the kind influence in question, so no one more fully 
realizes how decidedly it bears upon tne destiny of others." 

Full well I know, that by woman came the apostasy of 
Adain, and by woman the recovery through Jesus. It was 
woman that imbued the mind and formed the character of 
Moses, Israel's deliverer. It was woman that led the choir, 
and gave back the response of that triumphal procession which 
went forth to celebrate with timbrels, on the banks of the Red 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 47 

Sea, the overthrow of Pharoah. It was woman that put Sise- 
ra to flight, and composed the song of Deborah and Barak the 
son of Abinoam, and judged in righteousness for years the 
tribes of Israel. It was a woman that defeated the wicked 
counsels of Hainan, delivered righteous Mordecai, and saved a 
whole people from their utter desolation. And now to speak 
of Semiramis at Babylon, of Catharine of Russia, or of those 
queens of England whose joyous reigns constitute the bright- 
est period of British history. The sceptre of empire is not the 
sceptre that best befits the hand of woman, nor is the field of 
carnage her field of glory. Home, sweet home is her theatre 
of action, pedestal of beauty, and the throne of her power. Or 
if seen abroad, she is seen to the best advantage when on er- 
rands of love, and wearing her robe of mercy. It was not wo- 
man who slept during the agonies of Gethsemane. It was not 
woman who denied her Lord at the palace of Caiaphas. It 
was not woman that deserted his cross on the hill of Calvary. 
But it was woman that dared to testify her respect for his 
corpse, that procured spices for embalming it, and that was 
found last at night and first in the morning at the sepulchre. 
Time has neither impaired her kindness, shaken her constan- 
cy, nor changed her character. 

Now, as formerly, she is most ready to enter and most re- 
luctant to leave the abode of misery. Now, as formerly, ' is 
her office, and well it has been sustained, to stay the fainting 
head, wipe from the dim eye the tear of anguish, and from 
the cold forehead the dew of death. Her nature befits her to 
be a most powerful agent among the ranks of those who con- 
tend against the evils of intemperance. In view of this the 
American Temperance Society in 1833, whilst in session at 
Philadelphia, passed the following resolution : — 

"As the elevation and work of woman, and the extent and 
power of her influence, are sure indications of the state of so- 
ciety ; and as according to this standard our countrymen are 
under special obligations to the Author of all good, and are 



48 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

bound to be peculiarly grateful for the brig-lit manifestations 
of his favor ; and as the cause of Temperance in common with 
all other causes, has greatly multiplied and extended its bles- 
sings, through the instrumentality of woman's example and 
effort ; and should that example and effort be general, united 
and persevering in the promotion of the cause, so intimately 
connected with her own comfort and prospects, and that those 
whom she most tenderly loves, and for whom she most cheer- 
fully sacrifices and labors, it would surely prevail, become uni- 
versal, and its blessings be extended to all future time : There- 
fore, 

Resolved, That the females of the United States, in view of 
the powerful and salutary influence which they may exert over 
all classes in the community, and especially over the young ; 
and the inestimable blessings which they may be instrumental 
in conferring upon all future generations and for both worlds, 
be, and they hereby are, most respectfully and earnestly re- 
quested, universally in all suitable ways, to give to this cause 
their united and persevering efforts." * 

Fourth : In works of beneficence and acts of charity one 
of the great practical duties of the gospel, woman, when right- 
ly educated, is characterized by the widow in the gospel who 
contributed her two mites, and the scene at Joppa when the 
widoAvs wept around the corpse of Dorcas. 

" The wife of Lamartine is an English woman of generous 
and enthusiastic character, much esteemed and beloved. She 
has founded a retreat for repentant females, which is a model 
of good order and management. She has a country establish- 
ment for poor girls attacked by consumption. She is at the 
head of an institution which relieves the poor day-worker of 
the charge of her infant during the day, and yet separates not 
mother and child ; which provides a nurse, food and clothing 
for the babe just born, and yet tears it not from its mother's 
bosom." This is more magnanimous in those who have wealth, 



* Permanent Temperance Documents. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 49 

in the estimation of thinking minds, than the extravagance and 
waste displayed in dress and costly equipage by those whose 
hearts are unsanctified by the truths of religion, and who have 
never learned the first lessons of humanity. A lady educated 
as Miss Mary Lyon was, will hold the following sentiments : 
"Fine architecture, fine paintings and music, beautiful gar- 
dens with fountains and statuary, are quite desirable. But 
then, while the world is so full of ignorance, irreligion and 
misery as it now is, while the funds of our benevolent and 
educational institutions are so widely inadequate to the noble 
objects they have in view, is it right for the Christian, espe- 
cially for one of limited means, to indulge in objects of taste, 
or any superfluities, which, however lawful and desirable in 
themselves, are certainly far inferior in importance to the 
renovation of the world ?" 

Such was the character and life of the noble Lady Hun- 
tingdon : her income was only £1200 a year. With this she 
maintained a college she had erected at her own expense ; she 
erected chapels in most parts of the kingdom, and supported 
ministers to preach in various parts of the world ; and yet 
lived in so humble a way that a countryman who had paid a 
visit to her house remarked, " What a lesson ! Can a person 
of her noble birth, nursed in the lap of grandeur, live in such 
a house so meanly furnished ?" 

"The benevolent John Howard, who, having settled his ac- 
counts at the close of a particular year, and found a balance 
in his favor, proposed to his wife to spend it in a journey to 
London, or in any other excursion she chose. ' What a pretty 
cottage for a poor family it would build !' was her answer. — 
This hint met with his approbation, and the money was laid 
out accordingly." Such is' the disposition of well-educated 
and religious ladies. How much like angels of mercy are they 
as they pass by the abodes of human misery and stop to ad- 
minister relief. 

In the language of Dr. Beman, "Sin has rendered our 



50 A TLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

world the abode of dreadful suffering. The mark of God r s 
displeasure may be everywhere seen. Disease, and poverty, 
and death, are moving on in their melancholy course, and mak- 
ing the earth desolate. It is the business of the philanthro- 
pist and the christian to diminish the amount of human 
misery. If we would act for God and eternity, much of the 
employment of life must consist in relieving the wants of the 
needy, in administering to the sick, in imparting consolation 
to the afflicted, and in drying up the mourners' tears. And 
to these works of beneficence females are peculiarly adapted. 
Their native sympathies are cast in the proper mould for this 
sacred business. They easily enter into the sorrows of others. 
Their social temperament disposes them to " weep with them 
that weep." 

This native female disposition of enlarged feelings of bene- 
volence, is illustrated in what Toplady tells us of "a poor 
woman, but very good woman, who lived in Yorkshire, Eng- 
land, not far from the seat of the excellent Lady Betty Has- 
tings. She said, a little before she died, ' I will not die 
without leaving Lady Hastings a legacy. I bequeath to her 
the 17th chapter of St. John ; with my prayers that that 
sweet chapter may be made as great a blessing to her heart as 
it has been to mine.' " 

Fifth : But in the Sabbath- School, females more directly 
assist in the gospel than by any other plan. Here they preach 
the gospel every Sabbath to their classes. 

" Sabbath- Schools open a broad and delightful field for the 
exercise of female talent and virtues. These schools are 
making a new experiment of moral power and gospel truth 
upon the world. In these efforts to diffuse light and save the 
soul, we have a new and most interesting interpretation of the 
divine command to 'preach the gospel to every creature.' — 
Here the scheme of redeeming grace is brought down to the 
capacities of children, and the great truths of the Bible are 
made to operate upon the juvenile and infant minds. And for 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 51 

this labor of love females are peculiarly fitted. You may here, 
under God, train up children for heaven. The little ones, 
whom you take by the hand and instruct, and for whom you 
pray, are, some of them, without a mother to teach them, and 
to pray for them ; and not a few have mothers whose entire 
example and influence' are enlisted for their [temporal and 
eternal ruin. What an office of mercy, like that of guardian 
angels, is it to throw yourselves between these little immortals 
and destruction ! With the spirit of your Master — a spirit 
which is never more lovely and efficient than when it warms the 
hearts and inspires the exertions of females — you may here 
diffuse an influence which will tell upon the records of other 
generations ; you may accomplish purposes of mercy which 
will receive their proper distinction on the annals of eternity. 
A vast amount of good which Sabbath-schools are destined to 
bring about, must depend on female effort; and a portion of 
this good can be done by none but your sex. You are the 
very persons to collect the little female wanderers into Sab- 
bath-schools, and there, under your instructions, may be com- 
menced and deepened impressions which will make both earth 
and heaven glad." * 

Sixth : Females can assist in the gospel as pious teachers — 
aiming at the conversion of their pupils. In illustration of 
this, we will give an account of the experience and labors of 
Miss Mary Lyon upon the subject. She writes at one time to 
Miss Grant, " Though my school is such as to involve great 
and increasing responsibilities, yet some things are encourag- 
ing. I have quite as many of mature age in school as I have 
ever had, and I think quite as much improvement. Our pre- 
sent number is ninety-nine, and about forty indulge more or 
less hope that they love the Savior. Pray for us that these 
may not be dead while they have a name to live." 

Again, to her own mother, whilst she had charge of another 
school. "We need the influence of the Holy Spirit more than 

*Dr. BemaQjOn Female Influence and Obligations. 



52 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

any other blessing. Most of our scholars are probably "with- 
out hope, and without God in the world. We have here the 
children of many pious parents, whose prayers are daily offer- 
ed up for them and us ; we also have the prayers of many 
others. Several mothers who have daughters here r devote a 
little time every Wednesday morning, between eight and nine 
o'clock, to supplicate the influence of the Spirit upon this in- 
stitution. Will not you, my mother, sometimes think of us at 
that hour?" Again: "There are a few cases in school of 
more than usual religious interest. Our whole number is one 
hundred. About one half are either professors of religion, or 
indulge a hope that they are christians. I hope you will pray 
for us daily, that all who love the Savior may become decided, 
active and devoted followers ; and that all who do not now love 
God may give their hearts to Him and be prepared for His ser- 
vice. How much is to be done in this dark and wicked world, 
before all will know and love the Lord !" 

At another time she writes: "The religious character of 
the Buckland School, more than any thing else, drew the 
hearts of the good people towards it. Daughters who went 
thither, thoughtless and bent on pleasure, returned home seri- 
ous, and bent on doing good. The gentle influences of heaven 
falling on the school, its members were turned from the path 
of sin and death to that of holiness and life, till, to the churches 
in the vicinity, it became a consecrated spot. In many a 
working man's house, at many a family altar, that school was 
remembered with earnest prayer and with pious gratitude." 

"As a Religious Teacher." — "I shall probably express 
the opinion of all who have been members of her schools when 
I say that Miss Lyon's superiority as a teacher was nowhere 
so conspicuous as in her religious instruction. No where else 
has her death occasioned such a blank. At least five times 
each week did she feel it her duty to explain and comment 
upon some portion of Scripture before her school; and the 
extra occasions for such expositions were numerous. For most 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 53 

'©? these occasions she made preparation by a careful study of 
the Bible, and usually by noting down the leading thoughts 
she wished to present." * How much good an intelligent, pious 
teacher can effect when we consider the above example ! 
for teachers that are concerned for the spiritual interests of 
their pupils, who pray, and instruct, and aim with the solici- 
tude of a mother for their salvation. 

How many noble females have, in the ways we have just de- 
scribed, labored in the gospel ! What zeal, and perseverance, 
and fortitude they have manifested ! " What Spartan mother 
of old, when buckling on the armour of her son, and bidding 
him, as she gave bim his shield, ' either to bring it back or be 
brought back upon it,' can compare with the widowed mother 
of Lyman, when she replied to the intelligence that her son 
had been murdered by the cannibal Battas : *I bless God, who 
gave me such a son to go to the heathen, and I never felt so 
strongly as I do at this moment the desire that some others of 
my sons may become Missionaries also, and may go and preach 
salvation to those savage men who have drunk the blood of my 
son.' What ancient Hebrew woman, receiving 'their dead 
raised to life again,' surpassed the self-denying faith of the 
widowed mother who could say of a son to whom herself and 
her seven children were beginning to look for support, ' Let 
him go ; God will provide for me and my babes. And who am I, 
that I should be thus honored to have a son a missionary to 
the heathen?' and who, when the son had labored successfully 
in India, and had died, could say of a second who aspired to 
walk in the footsteps of his brother, 'Let William follow Jo- 
seph, though it be to India and an early grave ?' Here the 
accomplished and highly intellectual female may be seen 
meekly, yet firmly, devoting herself to a distant and arduous 
career ; vieing with the hero in his defiance of dangers, and 
with the martyr in the endurance of them." f 



* Dr. Hitchcock. 

f G/eat Commission, by Rev. J. Harris, D. D. 



5 1 A FLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

Did the pious and intelligent Mrs. Toukin do any thing to- 
wards advancing the gospel, when she persuaded a careless 
young man whom she met standing on the street in London 
to accompany her to church ? " At length, though with con- 
siderable reluctance, he yielded to her importunity, when, with 
affectionate earnestness, this pious friend endeavored to per- 
suade him from his purpose, and to induce him to accompany 
her to the Tabernacle. His state of mind was any thing but 
favorable to the serious consideration of sacred subjects ; and 
few ever entered the house of God less prepared to profit by 
its service. The Rev. Timothy East, of Birmingham, occu- 
pied the pulpit that evening ; and preached from the weighty 
question : ' What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole 
world, and lose his ow r n soul ? or what shall a man give in ex- 
change for his soul?' This solemn inquiry was pressed home 
by the preacher with all that point and energy which charac- 
terize his addresses; and the 'word came with power and with 
the -demonstration of the Spirit ' upon the mind of his youth- 
ful auditor. This was a night to be remembered by the Rev. 
John Williams," the great missionary to the Islands of the 
Southern Pacific. " It was remembered with vividness and 
interest, which his subsequent reference to it clearly evince. — 
Speaking of it from the same pulpit, at his valedictory service 
held just before his second departure from this country, he 
said : ' It is now twenty-four years ago, since, as a stripling 
youth, a kind female friend invited me to come into this place 
of worship. I have the door in my view at this moment at 
which I entered, and I have all the circumstances of that im- 
portant era of my history vividly impressed upon my mind : 
and I have in my eye at this instant, the particular spot upon 
v. hich I took my seat. I have also a distinct impression of 
the powerful sermon that w 7 as that evening preached by the 
excellent Mr. East, and God was pleased in his gracious provi- 
dence to influence my mind at that time so powerfully, that I 
forsook all my worldly companions. Nor was this the only 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 55 

effect. From that moment my blind eyes were opened, and I 
beheld wondrous things out of God's law. I diligently attend- 
ed the means of grace. I saw the beauty and reality in reli- 
gion which I had never seen before." * Mr. Williams was 
one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century, and one 
of the most successful missionaries that ever preached the 
gospel on a heathen shore. The simple act of the pious lady 
persuading him to church, resulted in the successful introduc- 
tion of the gospel upon the South Sea Islands, and what the 
result of that gospel may yet be, as it is taught on those Is- 
lands by one generation to another, will be determined at the 
judgment day; and what Mrs. Toukin did for the gospel in 
that one act, will be ascertained in time to come. 

What did the good mother of the Rev. John Newton do for 
the gospel ? 

He says of her, " My mother was a Dissenter, a pious wo- 
man, and a member of the late Dr. Jenning's church. She 
was of a weak, consumptive habit, and loved retirement ; and 
as I was her only child, she made it the chief business and 
pleasure of her life to instruct me, and bring me up in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord. I have been told, that 
from my birth she had, in her mind, devoted me to the minis- 
try ; and that had she lived till I was of a proper age, I was 
to have been sent to St. Andrews, in Scotland, to be educated. 
But the Lord had appointed otherwise. My mother died be- 
fore I was seven years of age." f 

"An Obscure Woman's Usefulness."—" There was once 
an obscure and pious woman living in a city in the South of 
England. History is silent respecting her ancestry, her place 
of birth, or her education. She had an only son, whom, in 
his infancy, she made it her great business to instruct and 
train up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. At seven 
years of age his mother died, and a few years after he went 

* Life of the Rev. John William?, by E. Prout. 

* Newton's Works. 



56 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

to sea, and became at length a common sailor in the African 
slave trade. He soon became a great adept in vice ; a swearer 
most horribly profane ; and, though younger than many of his 
companions in years, lie was one of the oldest in guilt. But 
he could not shake off the remembrance of his pious mother's 
instruction. Though dead and in her grave she seemed speak- 
ing to him still. After many alarms of conscience, and many 
pungent convictions, he became a christian, and subsequently 
one of the most successful ministers of the gospel Great Bri- 
tain ever produced. Of course, through the labors of the 
converted son, we may now trace the influence of the pious 
mother. In addition to his great ministerial labors, he wrote 
many evangelical works, and few authors have done more to 
extend the power of religion. He was highly eloquent, and 
greatly useful in religious conversation ; and his hymns, the 
use of which in worship is almost commensurate with the exten- 
sion of the English language, are of the most elevated and 
evangelical character. Follow that mother's influence farther. 
Her son was the means of the conversion of Claudius Bu- 
chanan, who became a minister of the gospel, and went to the 
East Indies as a missionary. He occupied a responsible sta- 
tion ; and his labors in behalf of the English population, and 
for the improvement of the moral and spiritual condition of the 
natives, are deservedly ranked among the noblest achieve- 
ments of Christian philanthropy. His little work entitled 
" The Star in the East," was the first thing that attracted the 
attention of Adoniram Judson to a mission in the East Indies. 
Hence, had it not been for that mother's faithfulness her son 
might never have been converted ; nor that train of causes 
put in operation which is now shedding such a flood of light 
on Burmah and the surrounding regions. 

The converted sailor was also the means of the conversion 
of Thomas Scott, from the dark mazes of Socinianism to the 
belief, practice, and preaching of evangelical truth. He was 
the author of a valuable commentary on the Bible, almost un- 



A PLBA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 57 

equalled in its practical tendency, and the extent of its circu- 
lation. To that pious mother's influence, operating through 
the efforts of her son, all this is easily traced. Besides, to the 
connection of her son with the poet Cowper, the evangelical 
character and great religious influence of Cowper's poetry are, 
doubtless, to be mainly attributed. Again: to this same min- 
ister's influence, in connection with that of Doddridge, the 
conversion of Wilberforce is traced. Wilberforce was a youno- 
English gentleman, one of the gayest of the gay; not an 
openly vicious man, but peculiar for his wit and his distinction 
in the fashionable circles. He was said to be the "joy and 
crown of the Doncaster races." During the fourteen years 
after Newton first saw Wilberforce, until his conversion, he 
made him the constant subject of prayer. And with what 
glorious results was the conversion of Wilberforce fraught to 
the interests of man ! What vast contributions did he make 
with his princely fortune to objects of benevolence ? To his in- 
fluence, to a great degree, may we impute the African Slave 
Trade ; and, in subsequent years, the emancipation of slaves 
in the British West Indies. In addition to this, Wilberforce 
was the author of a "Practical View of Christianity," which 
did much to commend spiritual' religion to the higher classes. 
This book was the means of the conversion of Leigh Eichmond, 
the author of the "Dairyman's Daughter," which has been 
the means of the conversion of thousands ! — Such are some 
of the glorious results of one holy woman's efforts to educate 
her son for God — a wide and mighty posthumous influence 
which an angel might feel honored to exert. Who was she ? 
The Mother of the Rev. John Newton." * What did she 
do for the gospel ? 

Woman was created a " help-meet for man, " not only in 
the common avocations of life, but in all the high and respon- 
sible duties of moral enterprise. In the ministry of the gos- 
pel, when they are called upon to direct the awakened man to 

* Cyclopedia of Moral and Religious Anecdotes. 



58 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

the blood of the cross, as well as when they become the trou- 
blers of Israel, and, like the prophets of old, point the finger 
against the drunkards of Ephraim, and the " mean, mincing, 
and wanton-eyed daughter of Zion ; " when they leave their 
homes, their country, and the graves of their fathers, commis- 
sioned by the Son of God to cross the wide ocean, and carry 
the messages of love to men sunk to the lowest degradation of 
heathenism, the delicate, yet firm companion of his toils must 
be by his side, competent to assist him in his daily instructions, 
mingle her prayers with his prayers, and, if it be the Lord's 
will, close his eyes in the sleep of death. 

And who would say that, in those works of love and philan- 
thropy — at home and abroad — female agency has not been 
equally significant and successful with that of man ? 

Yet, in all those labors, woman has her department, distinct 
from that of man. Her duties are adapted to her constitution 
and disposition. They do not conflict with his, but are more 
private, subordinate, yet mutual, cooperative, and equally ef- 
ficient. 

Now, when pious men's usefulness and efficiency is mostly 
measured by their intellectual and literary qualifications; 
when learning gives power and enterprise to men of the world, 
is it not reasonable that woman's agency, as man's co-laborer 
in the gospel, and in every great work of love and humanity, 
will be enhanced in power and success in proportion to her in- 
tellectual and literary qualifications? Here is again the im- 
perative obligation challenging us upon our sympathy for the 
heathen world abroad ; the distressed, the ignorant, and des- 
titute at home, to build seminaries, open schools, and furnish 
the means for the education of our daughters, that they may 
be qualified to take their post in the great duties that we owe 
to God and man. 

We complain frequently that not more of the young men of 
the church are willing to become ministers ; that whilst other 
professions arc filled to overflowing, thirty thousand ministers 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 59 

arc wanting to bring the whole world under religious instruc- 
tion. Men turn their attention to other avocations whoso 
emoluments are greater than those of the minister of the gos- 
pel. But, as one said, " had we more Susannah Wesleys, we 
would have more John Wesleys." The most of the students 
in our Theological Seminaries attribute their conversion, and 
their first impressions in reference to the ministry, to maternal 
influence. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Woman's Position in Society is Equality with Man, as 
a Social, Moral, and Intellectual Being. Her In- 
fluence upon Society, when she attains her Rightful 
Position. 

"I cannot but think, that a period will arrive when philo- 
sophical legislators will bestow a serious attention upon the 
education of women, upon the civil laws by which they are 
protected, the duties incumbent upon them, and the happiness 
which may be secured to them ; but, in the present state of 
things, they are placed neither in the order of nature, nor in 
the order of society ; what some succeed in, proves the de- 
struction of others ; their good qualities are sometimes preju- 
dicial to them, while their faults befriend them : one moment 
they are every thing, the next perhaps nothing. Their desti- 
ny is, in some respects, similar to that of freed-men in a mon- 
archy ; if they attempt to acquire any ascendency, — a power 
which the laws have not given them — it is imputed to them as 
a crime; if they remain slaves, they are persecuted and op- 
pressed." — Madame de Stael. 

All are beginning to admit that in many parts of the chris- 
tianized world, woman has never been introduced to her proper 
sphere of usefulness. Many of her sex have not had the ad- 
vantages extended to them, to qualify them for occupying the 
position for which nature and God design them. " The extent 
of female influence, and the importance of exerting it in favor 
of Christianity, are subjects which, perhaps, have never, as 
yet, powerfully arrested the attention, or deeply impressed 
the hearts, of christians. Much has been said, and much 
written, on the moral power exerted upon the world by female 
character and conduct ; but these themes have been more fire- 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION'. 61 

quently associated with poetry and fiction, than with religion 
and eternity." * Colleges, Universities, Law and Medical 
Schools have long existed, affording the highest advantages in 
literary and professional qualifications to the male sex, whilst 
woman's mind has been overlooked. 

Woman has been looked upon as incompetent to be man's 
equal, in the duties and responsible positions of life ; inferior, 
naturally, in mental and moral abilities ; and, consequently, in 
usefulness and importance. Blackstone observes, in his Com- 
mentaries on the Laws of England, "that even the disabili- 
ties, — in reference to her rights in marriage — which the wife 
lies under, are for the most part intended for her protection 
and benefit : so great a favorite is the female sex of the laivs 
of England." An annotator upon this, remarks, that "he 
is not so much in love with his subject, as to be inclined to 
have it in possession of a glory which it may not justly de- 
serve ;" and points out the disadvantages of the woman in her 
rights under the laws pertaining to marriage. 

" Husband and wife, in the language of the law, are styled 
baron and feme; the word baron, or lord, attributes to the 
husband not a very courteous superiority. But we might be 
inclined to think this an unmeaning technical phrase, if we 
did not recollect, that if the baron kills his feme, it is the same 
as if he had killed a stranger, or any other person ; but if the 
feme kills her baron it is regarded by the laws as a much 
more atrocious crime ; as she not only breaks through the re- 
straints of humanity and conjugal affection, but throws off all 
subjugation to the authority of her husband. And therefore 
the law denominates her crime a species of treason, and con- 
demns her to the same punishment as if she had killed the 
king." Other disabilities are pointed out, under which wo- 
man labored under the common laws of England, both in cri- 
minal and civil matters, all indicative of the prevailing idea 
of their inferiority in rank and importance when compared 

*Dr. N. S. S. Beman. 



BS A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

with the other sex. And this is the expression of one of Eng- 
land's great men, in reference to the rights and character of 
woman in the middle of the 18th century. 

" The state of society is indicated by the condition of ivo- 
m<w." 

First; In heathen countries females are despised. "The 
heathen female is viewed with contempt, from the morning of 
her existance. The birth of a daughter is an occasion of 
sorrow." 

Their education is neglected. This is true of every rank, 
wherever the Bible has not rescued women from degradation. 
Among rich and poor, in families of princes and peasants, she 
is alike ignorant. 

In Ceylon, when the American Missionaries arrived, not one 
in a district of two hundred thousand could read. The culti- 
vation of the female mind is thought to be not only in vain, 
but dangerous to the welfare of society. 

They are not at their own disjjosal in marriage. In some 
countries they are betrothed by their parents in infancy, or 
childhood ; in others, they are sold at a more advanced age, 
at prices varying according to their beauty or rank. 

Polygamy is universally practiced, and prevents them from 
enjoying the affections of their husbands, and the happiness 
of domestic life. 

They can be divorced by their husbands at any moment, and 
left without means of support. 

In barbarous and pagan countries, women are compelled to 
perform the most servile labors. They carry heavy burdens 
in the streets, and do the laboring in the fields, whilst men do 
the washing and the preparing of dresses. They often kill 
their female infants to prevent them from enduring what they 
have to go through. 

Their lives are not valued; they are often killed by their 
husbands for the slightest offense. 

Females in heathen countries are universally corrupt in 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. G3 

morals and degraded to the lowest extent. They are without 
natural affection. Infanticide is a common thing. At the 
Society islands two-thirds of the children were murdered in 
infancy. Some mothers had killed five and even eight of their 
offspring. Such is the state of woman in unenlightened and 
barbarous countries. Degraded in her condition, exposed to 
continual persecution and insult, deprived of all that is desir- 
able in domestic or social life, denied the blessings of educa- 
tion, excluded from the knowledge of God and the hopes of 
Heaven. She is, in short, treated as a soulless being, whose 
highest aim should be to gratify the caprice and obey the com- 
mands of haughty and unfeeling man." * 

"From Christianity woman has derived her moral and social 
influence. To it she owes her very existence as a social being. 
The mind of woman, which the legislators and sages of anti- 
quity had doomed to eternal inferiority and imbecility, Chris- 
tianity has developed. No system of religion recognizes 
woman as the companion and equal of man, except Christianity, 
and under no other system can she enjoy her inalienable 
rights." f 

In Mohammedan countries " women are shut out from all 
the opportunities of instruction, and excluded from the en- 
dearing pleasures of a delightful and equal society." "You 
could not offer a greater insult to a Mohammedan in Persia 
than to enquire after the female part of his family, even were 
they dangerously ill. Such contempt for the female character, 
and such opinions respecting the design of woman's creation, 
are sanctioned by the Koran, whose doctrines command the 
belief, and determine the practice of one hundred and twenty 
millions of the human race. Colonel Phipps, in an address 
before the Church Missionary Society, said, ' At Alexandria, 
in Egypt, I saw a Turk, at mid-day, in open street, cut off a 



* Tract on Condition of Females in Pagan Countries. 
f American Biblical Repository, July, 1842. 



64 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

woman's head, for no other reason than because he saw her 
without a veil.' " * 

" In the heroic ages, the occupations of females were similar 
to those of the patriarchal times, having their origin in a 
primitive age. They drew water, kept sheep, fed cows and 
horses, loosed and watered the horses from their husbands' 
chariots, and besides performed all the laborious offices of the 
house." f 

In some of the christianized, yet less refined, countries of 
Europe, women yet do the drudgery of the field, and are treated 
more as servants than equals by their husbands. And only in 
those sections of the christian world where man has been 
elevated to the highest state of education and christian refine- 
ment, woman is treated as an equal ; an equal in educational 
and literary advantages, an equal in the social enjoyments 
of life. 

In many sections of our country, no special provision is 
made for the superior education of females ; and,- as in all other 
parts of the world, u the state of society is indicated by the 
condition of zoo man." 

Objections are urged from the more rude and uneducated 
against woman's equality as a social, moral, and intellectual 
being: " It is well enough to have colleges and educate our 
boys — learning may be of use to them ; but as for girls, so 
much education is of no use — it ivill maize them proud and 
insubordinate." 

Sidney Smith remarks, " If there be any good at all in 
female ignorance, this (to use a very colloquial phrase) is surely 
too much of a good thing." " The condition of females," says 
the Rev. D. A. Clark, "has always been a state of subordina- 
tion, and in some countries, incredibly servile. The gospel 
emancipates them. But even in gospel lands they have never 
risen so high as they may." 



* Tract on Condition of Females in Pagan Countries, 
f American Biblical Repository, July, 1842. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 65 

" I cannot speak upon this subject without indignation. 
Though many institutions have been established, within the 
last half century, for the education of girls, and great efforts 
have been made to elevate the standard of scholarship, still 
not a tythe of what ought to be done, and what the best good 
of society requires to be done, has yet been accomplished. 
The romantic ideas of the dark ages have not wholly disap- 
peared. The chivalrous notion still prevails, in society, that 
men need knowledge, but women, accomplishments, for success 
in life. It is time that the ' benefit of the clergy ' should be 
extended even to women, and that distinction in learning 
should no longer be the peculiar privilege of 'learned clerks.' "* 

Even Aristotle, in his day, knew better than many in this 
boasted age of education and wisdom ; he says : " Are wo- 
men by barbarians reduced to the level of slaves? it is because 
they are barbarians, and have never risen to the rank of men : 
that is, of men fit to govern. Nothing proves more ruinous 
to a state than the defective education of women ; since, 
wherever the institutions respecting one-half of the community 
are faulty, the corruption of that half will gradually taint the 
whole." 

We wish not to advocate the propriety of female laiv-schools, 
or female medical schools ; nor have we any sympathy with 
the infidel movements in some parts of the country under the 
designation of "Woman's Rights." Such fanatical ultraisms 
are always connected with every good cause ; even in Hannah 
More's day, fanaticism upon this subject was no uncommon 
thing. She says: " They little understand the true interests 
of woman who would lift her from the important duties of her 
allotted station, to fill with fantastic dignity a loftier but less 
appropriate niche. Nor do they understand her true happi- 
ness, who seek to annihilate distinctions from which she derives 
advantages, and to attempt innovations which depreciate her 



Dr. Timoihj Dwight. 



66 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

real value. Each sex has its appropriate excellencies, which 
would be lost were they melted down into a common character 
by the fusion of a new philosophy." 

We contend for the natural abilities of females, their native 
talents for the acquisition of knowledge, and their capability 
of arriving at distinction in many of the most important and 
useful branches of literature. We hold out the idea that their 
agency is not inferior to that of men, but equal in importance 
and efficiency in every moral enterprise ; in their influence in 
moulding the character of society ; in extending morality and 
religion among the people of a nation, and thus securing the 
permanency of its government. Again, this efficiency is equal, 
if not superior, to that of men in the education of the rising 
generation, from the cradle to mature manhood ; in diffusing 
knowledge in general ; in the propagation of the gospel, and 
in the successful movement of every part in the economy of 
benevolence. 

The ideas that " the sick-chamber alone is the true theatre 
of woman; women need not be as highly learned as men for 
their purposes in life ; women s mental capacities are inferior 
to those of men; it is ivell enough to have colleges and semi- 
naries for boys, but we need none for girls — common schools 
will do for them." These and many other declarations are, 
as Sidney Smith says, u the common delight o/Noodledom." 

May you not — who hold these semi-barbarous sentiments, in 
reference to your daughters, and are determined to carry them 
out in their education, while you see others around educating 
their families — may you not cause them to regret your stub- 
bornness, when hereafter they feel their inferiority, and see 
their deficiency, in the society into which they may be thrown 
during subsequent life ? How often do we hear children, when 
brought into more intelligent communities, lament their pa- 
rents' neglect in not attending to their education, while they 
compare themselves with those around them in the possession 
of superior advantages. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 67 

The condition of the world is this, that not only the state 
vf society is indicated by the condition of woman, but the re- 
verse — woman s condition is made by the state of society. 
Among the most barbarous nations her condition is the lowest 
state of degradation ; and just as a nation rises in civilization 
and intelligence, in that proportion does she ascend the scale 
of her amelioration. This rule holds good even in Christian 
countries ; as a people rises in intelligence, religion, and re- 
finement, so rises woman in her advantages and standing. 
And only where the Bible is most highly appreciated, and 
Christianity has brought the people to the "highest style of 
man," where that righteousness that exalteth a nation is pre- 
dominant, there, and there only, is woman treated as a com- 
panion, and regarded upon an equality with man, as a moral, 
social, and intellectual being ; there the same literary and 
educational advantages are extended to her ; there she is not 
put off with frivolous accomplishments like a lady in a Turkish 
harem, but her standing and usefulness are appreciated, and 
regarded equal, and in many offices superior to those of man ; 
there she takes her proper position in the social circle, at the 
domestic fireside, in the church ; there she is educated and re- 
garded as a christian, a help-meet for man on earth, and his 
equal in heaven. 

Now give woman those advantages and qualifications in any 
state of society, and the result will inevitably be, that her in- 
fluence and agency will so tell upon that society, as to elevate 
it to an equality with her own position. We will devote the 
remaining part of this chapter to the illustration of this pro- 
position. We will first give the testimony of Hannah More ; 
she herself, being an example, as well as a most strict and 
competent observer of its truth. 

"I think facts will warrant the assertion, that no individu- 
al in Great Britain, during the reign of George III., exerted 
so extensive, and so salutary a moral influence upon all classes 
of citizens, from the king to the meanest beggar in the realm, 



68 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

as Hannah More. She is a lady of whom her sex may justly 
be proud. The world has produced very few of the other sex 
who might not bow with respectful deference before her splen- 
did genius." * 

Her testimony is : — " The general state of civilized society 
depends, more than those are aware who are not accustomed 
to scrutinize into the springs of human action, on the prevail- 
ing sentiments and habits of women, and on the nature and 
degree of the estimation in which they are held. Even those 
who admit the power of female elegance on the manners of 
men, do not always attend to the influence of female princi- 
ples upon their character. The prevailing manners of an age 
depend, more than we are aware, or willing to allow, on the 
conduct of the women: this is one of the principal hinges on 
which the great machine of society turns. Those who allow 
the influence which female graces have, in contributing to 
polish the manners of men, would do well to reflect how great 
an influence female morals must also have on their conduct. 

"I would call on them with a 'warning voice,' which should 
stir up every latent principle in their minds, and kindle every 
slumbering energy in their hearts; I would call on them to 
come forward, and contribute their full and fair proportion 
towards the saving of their country. But I would call on 
them to come forward, without departing from the refinement 
of their character — without derogating from the dignity of 
their rank — without blemishing the delicacy of their sex : I 
would call them to the best and most appropriate exertion of 
their power, to raise the depressed tone of public morals, and 
to awaken the drowsy spirit of religious principle." f 

" In morals and religion, and in every thing with which 
morals and religion stand directly connected, the female sex 
may do as much good or hurt, as men ordinarily effect in the 
politics and government of the world. What man would be iv 



*E. D Sanborn, Prof. Dartmouth College. 
f Hannah More's Works- 



A TLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 60 

irunkard if he were sure to receive universal female reproba- 
tion ? What man would fight a duel, if the united female 
voice were to cry out murder upon the shameful deed ? How 
long would the amusements of the theatre continue to corrupt 
our large cities, if no female would appear upon the stage., nor 
on any occasion take her seat in this great temple of vice t 
How long would the ball-room be crowded ; and gay, and ex- 
travagant, and dissipating parties maintain an existence-, if 
■every female were to set her face against them;, and resolve to 
go to no place where the voice of Christ and duty did not call 
her ? If the whole female world were to revere the Sabbath, 
and were found in the house of God, on this sacred day, what 
•a happy revolution would soon be effected ! The kingdom of 
■God would come. The blessed reign of Jesus would be estab- 
lished on earth." * 

This female influence upon society, and in behalf of the 
country, is exerted in many ways — some of which are specified 
in the preceeding chapters — but there is one public capacity 
in which a woman can accomplish an immense amount of good 
— that of a Teacher. 

" Among the means essential to the safety of the nation, 
many are convinced of the necessity of urging into the field a 
multitude of benevolent, self-denying teachers. Many of the 
most candid and discriminating, who have the advantage of 
observation on this subject, are convinced that all other mean? 
without this are insufficient. Fill the country with ministers, 
and they could no more conquer the whole land and secure 
their victories, without the aid of many times their number of 
female teachers, than the latter could complete the work with- 
out the former. But what can be done ? most of the calls 
which come to New England, and they are multiplying every 
year, must be returned unanswered. The work of supplying 

teachers is a great work, and it must be done for the good .of 
the country." f 

*Dr.N.S. S.Beman. 

f Circular of Mary Lyon. 



70 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION 1 . 

The little attention that lias heretofore been given to female- 
education, has been more or less confined to the more wealthy 
classes of society ; "whilst the middle classes, of farmers and 
mechanics — the more substantial classes of a country — have 
been standing aloof, either from the expensiveness of most of 
Female Boarding Schools, or from sheer want of inclination. 
It should be our aim, in the establishment of public institutions, 
to have especial reference to those classes of our country ; to 
draw out their influence and favor in behalf of female educa- 
tion, that they may educate their daughters and qualify them 
for teachers, and all other useful stations in society and the 
church. " The leading characters in our religious andbenev- 
olent enterprises, the controlling minds which preside in all 
the distinguished posts of usefulness, are neither from the 
wealthy classes, nor from tbe wretchedly poor, but from the 
substantial yeomanry of the land. Influence- exerted on that 
class tells every where. Educate the women and the men 
will be educated." * When this portion of the community is 
reached, and they are induced to educate their families, we 
can only expect to be supplied with a. sufficient number of well 
qualified teachers. What a deplorable deficiency there is here, 
not in numbers so much as in the character of the teachers of 
most of our primary schools. 

W Now to meet this great exigency ; to save a considerable 
portion of the rising generation from falling back into the con- 
dition of half-civilized or savage life ; what other instrumen- 
tality does society afford, than to send into every obscure and 
hidden district in the State, a young man or a young woman, 
whose education is sound, whose language is well selected, 
whose pronunciation and tones are gentle and refined, all 
whose topics of conversation are elevating and instructive, 
whose benignity of heart is constantly manifested in acts of 
civility, courtesy, and kindness, and who spreads a nameless 
charm over whatever circle may be entered. Such a person 

* Mis? Lyon. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 71 

should the teacher of every common school be. Such a teacher, 
by associating with the children of the school for a considera- 
ble portion of the time each day ; by remaining with them for 
weeks.and months successively; by having an opportunity to 
observe their conduct towards each other, and thus to become 
acquainted with their various dispositions ; by gaining access 
to their minds through the delightful medium of instruction ; 
and finally, prolonging this relationship through all the sus- 
ceptive and impressible years of childhood and youth ; such 
a. teacher, as far as it may be in the power of any mortal agen- 
cy to do it, may mould the habits and manners of the rising 
generation into the pleasing forms of propriety and decorum, 
and by laying their foundations in the principles of justice, 
magnanimity and affection, may give them an ever-during per- 
manence." * 

In the first place, woman is denied her rights in Pagan and 
Mohammedan countries — countries where "might is right " — 
where tlae universal rule is for the stronger to oppress the 
weaker ; where the Bible has not taught righteousness, mercy, 
and justice. 

Again : in Christian countries, where the means of a liberal 
education have not extended, woman is not allowed to occupy 
her equal and rightful position. In such communities, selfish- 
ness is a predominant passion, " every body goes in for making 
money," and that is looked upon as the grand motive, and 
prevailing object of man's existence. Honest industry and the 
accumulation of wealth are not looked upon as means by 
which to promote the highest and noblest objects of humani- 
ty : Education, Religion, and Charity ; but the matter is re- 
versed, and making money is the highest aim, and ultimate 
object of man's labors and enterprises ; and education and re- 
ligion are only secondary, and auxiliary. Religion is attend- 
ed to between times, at man's "convenient seasons," and edu- 
cation, only so far as it may help along in the great work of 

* Horace Mann, in Tenth Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education!.. 



12 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

money making. A boy ought to be able to calculate interest, 
to write an agreement or promissory note, or to have learning 
enough to prevent being cheated in these dishonest times — no 
more like the good old times when every body was honest. 

If the profession of a physician, or a lawyer, or the occupa- 
tion of a merchant, (not surely of a preacher,) would be likely 
to afford an opening to make more, now and then a smart 
boy, who manifests an inclination that way, goes to college, 
and prepares himself for one or the other, of this kind of busi- 
ness. But as for the girls, common schools are good enough 
for them, their education would cost money, and they could 
not do any more ivorh after receiving an education than they 
can without it ; and would, perhaps, be disposed not to work 
as well, and here would be an outlay for their education with- 
out any profit; or, in more common phraseology, "female edu- 
cation ivill not pay." To go to the expense of establishing 
good institutions, and having their sons and daughters educa- 
ted under good instructors, that they may be useful to the 
church, and to their country ; or, to lay out money for the 
education of their children, that those children may do good 
to others, and, perhaps, not get paid for all this in the pre- 
sent life, is a species of doctrine that they have not light, and 
benevolence, and religion enough to appreciate ; it is so noble 
a humanity, too high and heavenly for their comprehension. 
Among people of this class of society, woman is debased to a 
sordid inferiority; the beauties and enjoyments of literature 
are forever denied her ; her mind is not sufficiently cultivated 
to study the scriptures successfully, and make herself acquaint- 
ed with the practical and doctrinal Avorks of her church. She 
is out of her clement in the refinements of intelligent society, 
should she ever have her lot cast in another community. Her 
reading must always be in elementary works, and the simplest 
passages of the Bible; and she is ever cut off from exerting that 
high and poAvcrful influence upon society in general, in behalf 
of religion and refinement, that the church and country de- 
mand. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 73 

But there is another class of society, -who very much deplore 
the state of the one we have just described, and "who are per- 
fectly disgusted with such unpardonable ignorance ; who give 
their daughters a finished education. But from the disposi- 
tion that apparently prompts parents, and the kind of educa- 
tion their daughters in many instances receive, we conceive 
females in this circle of society to be no more elevated to their 
true position in life than they are in the former. The aim 
and ambition of those parents in the education of their daugh- 
ters, are not so much that they may be useful to society in the 
various stations which they might occupy, but more that 
they might please and be admired of their fellow-man. Faci- 
litation is the great primary idea, and education is made auxil- 
iary to it, and adapted to its attainment. This is the aim of 
the mother, and of the daughter, as soon as her mind is suffi- 
ciently developed to have one predominant object in view. In 
this procedure in the education of females, it is not necessa- 
ry to be profound. 

An extended course of Mathematics is of no use, dead lan- 
guages are of no use, and the living ones, only so far as con- 
versational ability and billetdoux correspondence may be con- 
cerned. Extended systems of the different branches of the 
moral, intellectual and natural sciences are of no use. So 
their daughters can read French, know music, can paint and 
draw, and have gone through a course of calisthenics, they 
have well nigh finished their education. 

At all events they have all the main moral and intellectual 
material in store for a good " set out," and this is the chief 
end of woman — mother and daughter. 

In the former state of society woman in made a drudge ; 
the object of her life, a source of income only. In the latter 
she is made a doll ; an object of embellishment to attract at- 
tention and to be admired. In the former, she is educated as 
a servant, in the latter, as a Circassian. Thus, in the higher 
walks of life, woman is frequently just as much the subject of 
injustice and caprice, as among the middle classes. 



74 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

But there is yet another state of society ; the highest state 
to which man has yet attained, and to which he can only attain 
by the power of the united influences of superior intelligence 
and vital religion, a state in which the governing, leading 
minds of a community of all the various occupations have the 
high aim of living to the glory of God, and the good of man ; 
who look upon the world with feelings of humanity, and with 
whom the absorbing question is : how can I do the most good 
with my talents, my possessions, and my family ? They wish 
their children not only to be successful in the secular affairs 
of life, but to attain the highest possible degree of usefulness. 
In such communities, schools and educational arrangements 
will necessarily soon be the very best. The people of such a 
state of society will appreciate the value of woman's influence 
and abilities, when properly educated, and among them alone 
will she be allowed her rightful standing ; there she is a com- 
panion and an equal. 

From the schools in such communities most of the three 
thousand female missionaries now in heathen lands have gone ; 
most of the the three hundred teachers who have been sent 
into the Western States by the " Society for Promoting Na- 
tional Education." In such communities men of the highest 
standing are likely to prepare their daughters for teachers, * 
and other highly useful and responsible posts. From the midst 
of such advantages a Charlotte Elizabeth will arise to write 
the "Wrongs of Women;" a Hannah More and a Maria 
Edgeworth ; the one to advocate the importance of female 
education, and the other the manner of conducting it; Mary 
Lyon and Catharine Beecher, the one to show the practicability 
of a union of religious and secular instruction, and the other 
the introduction of female normal instruction for the enlarge- 
ment of the plans of National Education. 

* Millard Fillmore had his daughter educated for a teacher. 



CHAPTER V. 



To Secure the Thorough Education of our Daughters. 
we need Schools and Seminaries under the Control 
of the Church, and in Charge of well-Educated,. Pious 

Instructors : — 

"Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth." — 1 Cor. 8, 1. 

" Mere knowledge, or science, when the heart is not right, 
fills with pride ; swells a man with vain self-confidence, and 
reliance on his own powers, and very often leads him entirely 
astray. Knowledge, combined with right feelings, with pure 
principles, with a heart filled with love to God and man, may 
be trusted ; but not mere intellectual attainments ; mere ab- 
stract science ; the mere cultivation of the intellect. Unless 
the heart is cultivated with that, the effect of knowledge is 
to make a man a pedant; to fill him with vain ideas of his 
own importance ; and thus to lead him into error and sin." — 
A. Barnes. 

We must have good schools in order to qualify our females 
to incur the responsibility that rests upon them, m their duty 
to their country as citizens ; their duty to Jheir families as 
mothers ; their duty to the church as co-laborers in the gos- 
pel ; their duty to society as teachers, and the general im- 
pression of their character and conduct upon the community 
among whom they live. In order to attain this, we need 
schools of the best character, from the infant school to the 
highest seminary. Our primary school system needs revision. 
Many of the teachers are not intellectually qualified to give 
instruction in the elements of an English education. Many 
of them are not sufficiently acquainted with the English lan- 
guage to correct the grammatical errors of their pupils, in 



7l". A TLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

their conversation, or the syntax and orthography in their 
first efforts at composition. 

A late writer in a Journal of Education observes : — "Every 
stripling avIio has passed four years within the walls of a col* 
lege ; every dissatisfied clerk, who has not ability enough to 
manage the trifling concerns of a common retail shop ; every 
young farmer who obtains in the winter a short vacation from 
the toils of summer ; in short, every young person who is 
conscious of his imbecility in other business, esteems himself 
fully competent to train the ignorance and weakness of in- 
fancy into all the virtue, and power, and wisdom of maturer 
years ; to form a creature, the frailest and feeblest that hea- 
ven has made, into the most intelligent and fearless sovereign 
of the whole animated creation ; the interpreter, and adorer, 
and almost the representative of Divinity. The most tender 
interests of the children for both worlds are entrusted to his 
guidance, even when he makes no higher pretension to motive 
than that of filling up a few months of time not otherwise 
appropriated." 

Many a child of natural talents is doomed to obscurity for 
life, because it was his misfortune to be born and reared in a 
district where the teacher was incompetent to see his abilities, 
and give the mind the first taste for learning, and impart the 
first impulse to its future developments. The worthless pa- 
rent who beggars his family is reprobated as worse than an 
infidel ; but witn what pity should that man be regarded who, 
in the office of a teacher, through incompetency, is starving the 
immortal minds of his pupils. 

Besides, many of our primary school teachers are morally 
unqualified for their positions ; some are intemperate, grossly 
immoral in their habits, public contemners of religion in their 
practice. The school-law of Massachusetts is a most excel- 
lent one, and when enforced would prevent communities from 
sustaining injury from the example of moral delinquency on 
the part of public teachers. " The committee must be satis- 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 77 

fied of the good moral character of the applicant." No talents 
however profound, no genius however splendid, no attainments 
however ample, can atone for any deficiency in moral charac- 
ter. In the beautiful language of the law, " it is the duty 
of the president, professors, and tutors of the University at 
Cambridge, of the several colleges, and of all preceptors and 
teachers of academies, and all other instructors of youth, to 
exert their best endeavors to impress on the minds of children 
and youth, committed to their care and instruction, the prin- 
ciples of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to 
their country, humanity and universal benevolence, sobriety, 
industry and frugality, charity, moderation, and temperance, 
and those other virtues which are the ornament of human so- 
ciety, and the basis upon which a republican constitution is 
founded ; and it shall be the duty of such instructors to en- 
deavor to lead their pupils, as their ages and capacities will 
admit, into a clear understanding of the tendency of the 
above mentioned virtues to preserve and perfect a republican 
constitution, and secure the blessings of liberty, as well as to 
promote their future happiness, and also to point out to them 
the evil tendency of the opposite vices." 

This is the demand of a State ; it is the demand of a civil 
constitution, guarding the moral interests of those who have 
adopted it. But there is a higher demand ; the demand of 
heaven and the government of God, that defend the sacred 
interests of conscience, and the heart of every child, with a 
view of a judgment and eternity to come. The State demands 
the honesty, benevolence, chastity, temperance, and virtue of 
every child, by way of securing its happiness in time ; but 
God demands the cultivation of those virtues, inasmuch as 
they are identified with a child's happiness in the world to 
come. Every primary-school teacher's obligation to God is 
just a imperative as his obligation to the State, and the eternal 
happiness of his pupil should be as dear to him as its temporal 
happiness. 



78 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

Again, all virtue is founded upon religion, and those who 
attempt to inculcate the virtues without religion, will find their 
teaching as "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." " De~ 
fective indeed must be the qualification of that man or woman, 
as a teacher or guide of youth, who does not believe, that, in 
addition to the knowledge of letters and science, which it is 
his or her business to lead them into, it is equally a duty on 
every suitable occasion, as far as practicable, to inculcate those 
principles of ' good behavior,' of honesty, kindness, justice, 
purity, and benevolence, which are essential elements in the 
character of every honorable and worthy member of general 
society. Too many teachers have an extremely imperfect 
view of the moral claims of children. 

"A teacher, or guardian of youth, acting as the head of a 
school, of a family, of a factory, or prison, or a hospital, will, 
in proportion to the predominance of this Love (love to God) 
in his heart, be successful, according to his capacity, in turn- 
ing the currents of thought from vice to virtue, from error to 
truth, from earth-born desires to heavenward affections. 

"There are many sceptics with respect to the utility of knowl- 
edge, as a means of ameliorating the morals of mankind. 
And the question, taken in the abstract, do learning and sci- 
ence, superadded to human nature, necessarily lead to moral 
purity ? The answer, I fear, must be given in the negative. 
Human nature does, very commonly, prove too hard a match 
for reason and judgment. The most profound science, and 
most exalted talent cannot always prevent a man from being 
at once 'the greatest and meanest of mankind.' The Marats 
and the Condorcets, of the French Revolution; the Tom 
Paines and the Aaron Burrs, of our country ; and thousands 
of others of like character in almost every nation where learn- 
ing prevails, appear to demonstrate, that there is no security 
against a life of profligacy, in mere literature and science. 
What then can afford a security against the assaults of tempta- 
tion to evil, casual or habitual ? What can effectually restrain 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 79 

individuals, and of course families, neighborhoods and nations, 
from yielding to evil propensities which every man finds in his 
own heart, and thus exhibiting all that is vile in human incli- 
nations ? I confess I know of no other answer that can be 
given to the question, but the Grace of God. If the author 
of Pilgrim's Progress could say, on seeing a condemned male- 
factor passing on his way to Tyburn, ' Ah, me ! but for the 
grace of God, there goes John Bunyan;' and, if the most 
learned and greatest of the Apostles could say, ' By the 
grace of God, I am what I am;' must we not conclude that 
this grace is the only effective panacea for human wickedness 
and immorality ? But how to obtain or secure this Grace, is 
the turning point. I know of no other reliable prescription, 
than faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But this Faith in 
Christ, when fairly admitted as an inmate of the soul, is never 
satisfied with a merely formal, outward profession of Christ. 
Its genuine possession is inseparable from the ' Fruits of 
the Spirit.' Then the force and power, the divine obliga- 
tion of the gospel precepts and apostolic injunctions, are 
felt and acted upon; and the grace of God is besought with 
earnestness, to carry on the work of purification in the soul, 
until this militant sphere of action shall be absorbed in the 
triumphant. 

"If this be the correct rationale of a sound Christian morality, 
we may easily infer the duties of parents, teachers, and guides 
of youth, in endeavoring to instill, in the most effective man- 
ner, the truths of the gospel into the minds of their charge." * 

Again: from the character of the mind itself, the necessity 
of high qualifications in the teacher is apparent. " In the 
first place, what is the material upon which the teacher is to 
exercise his skill ; which he is to mould, fashion, and polish ? 
If it were a coarse and vulgar substance, it might go into 
rough hands and take its chance. But it is something infi- 
nitely more precious and ductile than the finest gold. It is 

* Letter of John Griscom, Esq., to Hon. Horace Mann. 



80 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

the intelligent, the immortal mind, or rather, it is half a hun- 
dred such minds, sparkling around the teacher and all opening 
to his plastic touch. It is, what shall I say ? A substance of 
the finest mould that can be fashioned and chiseled like the 
Grecian Apollo ? No ! it is a spiritual essence fresh from the 
skies. It is a mysterious emanation from the infinite source 
of being and intelligence, an immortal mind — ever present, 
though always invisible, in the school-room — seeing, hearing, 
thinking, expanding ; always ready to take the slightest im- 
pression for good or for evil, and certain to be influenced every 
hour, one way or the other, by the teacher. What a respon- 
sibility ! What a task ! 

Consider the kind of substance upon which the school- 
master is either skilfully or unskilfully tracing the first lines 
that it receives, after the visible cipher of the nursery, and 
what the sketching upon such a tablet ought to be. He might 
go down to the sea-shore, when the tide is out, and write as 
rudely as he pleased, and the first refluent wave would wash 
the surface just as smooth as the last ebb left it. He might 
draw his awkward diagrams upon the drifted snow-bank, and 
the first breath of air would wisk them away. He might 
write out his lessons like a wise man or a fool, and it would 
make no difference ; the next hour would obliterate them all. 
But it is not so in the school-house. Every tablet there is 
more durable than brass. Every line the teacher traces upon 
the mind of the scholar, is, as it were, "graven w T ith the 
point of a diamond." Rust will eat up the hardest metals; 
time and the elements will wear out the deepest chiseling in 
marble ; and if the painter could dip his pencil in the rain- 
bow, the colors would at length fade from the canvass. But 
the spirits, the impressible minds of that group of children, in 
however humble circumstances, are immortal. When they 
have outlived the stars, they will only have entered upon the 
infancy of their being. And there is reason to believe, that 
no impression made upon them will ever be obliterated. For- 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 81 

gotten, during shorter or longer periods of time, many things 
may be ; but the cipher, without the erasure of a single line, 
in all probability remains, to be brought out by the tests of a 
dying hour, or the trial of the last day. The schoolmaster 
literally speaks, writes, teaches, paints, for eternity. They 
are immortal beings, whose minds are as clay to the seal under 
his hand." * 

This is the power and jurisdiction of teachers over the 
minds of their pupils ; and, as religion is the basis of all moral 
greatness and virtue, teachers, to meet their responsibility to 
their country and their God, must not only be intellectually 
prepared to teach, but be religious men; men and women of 
the purest lives, and most irreproachable example. Then suc- 
cess vail attend their labors, and generations of a happy coun- 
try, and a prosperous church will rise up and " call them 
blessed." Hundreds of respectable citizens will follow them 
to their graves, and weep over the departure of their Glori- 
fied Teachers. We will give the observations of experienced 
teachers upon this subject, addressed to Hon. Horace Mann. 

"With my views of human nature, I should not expect to 
succeed, in every case, in securing for each young heart what 
I understand to be a truly religious character. This is not, 
as I think, wholly a work of education ; for ' neither is he 
that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God 
that giveth the increase.' Still, I am firmly of the opinion 
that the right of expectation of a religious character would be 
increased very much in proportion to the excellence of the 
training given, since God never ordains means which he does 
not intend to bless; and he said : " Train up a child in the 
way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from 
it." But I should not forgive myself, nor think myself longer 
fit to be a teacher, if, with all the aid and influences you have 
supposed, I should fail, in one case in a hundred, to rear up 
children, who, when they should become men, would be hon- 

* Hon. Horace Mann. 



/ 



82 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

est dealers, conscientious jurors, true witnesses, incorruptible 
voters or magistrates, good parents, good neighbors, and good 
members of society, who would be temperate, industrious, fru- 
gal, and conscientious in all their dealings, prompt to pity and 
instruct ignorance, instead of ridiculing and taking advantage 
of it, public spirited, philanthropic, and observers of all things 
sacred, who would not be drunkards, profane swearers, detrac- 
tors, vagabonds, rioters, cheats, thieves, aggressors upon the 
rights of property, of person, of reputation, or of life, or bo 
guilty of such omission of right and commission of wrong that 
it would be better for the community, had they never been 
Lorn." * 

" If, now, a teacher has, in addition to these qualifications, 
the other essential ones; if he is well educated himself, in the 
branches which he has to teach ; if he is systematic in all his 
arrangements in school ; if he is firm and steady in his gov- 
ernment, and has the power to excite among his pupils a love 
for the acquisition of knowledge, and a desire to improve ; 
and if he is governed honestly and really by religious princi- 
ple in all his conduct and character, he is prepared for his 
work. And if all the children of this land were under the 
charge of such teachers, for six hours in the day, and ten 
months in the year, and were to continue under these influ- 
ences for tho usual period of instruction in schools, I do not 
sec why the result would not be that, in two generations, sub- 
stantially the Avhole population would be trained up to virtue, 
to habits of integrity, fidelity in duty, justice, temperance, 
and mutual good will. It seems to me that this effect would 
take place in all cases, except where extremely unfavorable 
influence out of school would counteract it, which I think 
would hardly be the case except in some districts in the most 
populous cities." f 

" If the attendance of the scholars could be universal ; if 

*D. P. Page, Esq., State Normal School, Albany, N. Y. 
f llev. Jacob Abbott. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 83 

the teachers were men of those high intellectual and moral 
qualities, apt to teach, devoted to their work, and favored 
with that blessing which the word and providence of God 
teach us always to expect on our honest, earnest and well-di- 
rected efforts in a good cause ; on these conditions, and under 
these circumstances, I do not hesitate to express the opinion 
that the failures need not be — would not be — one per cent, 
else, what is the meaning of that explicit declaration of the 
Bible : "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when 
he is old he will not depart from it.",* 

Are State schools likely to receive teachers of this high, 
intellectual, moral and religious character, particularly in Ma- 
ryland, and those States where educational arrangements are 
not as far in advance as in others ? Dr. James W. Alexan- 
der, in a Report on Parochial Schools to the General As- 
sembly of the Presbyterian Church, 1846, says : " If we ask 
whether the Presbyterian population of these United States 
can safely rely, for such scriptural training, on the common 
school system of the several States ; we most reluctantly, but 
without a remaining doubt, answer in the negative. The ques- 
tion finds a prompt solution, when we consider, that our State 
schools, in their best estate, can teach no higher morals or re- 
ligion than what may be called the average of public morals 
and religion. So long as the majority do not receive the 
truths of grace, State schools, their creature, can never teach 
the gospel. In some States it is already a matter of debate, 
whether the Avord of God shall be admitted ; and even if this 
were settled to our wishes, it needs scarcely be said, our ne- 
cessities demand something far higher than the bare reading 
of the Bible. In our State schools— Bible or no Bible — we 
have every assurance that Christ, and grace, and gospel liber- 
ty, cannot, by authority, be so much as named ; and without 
these there can be no christian education. 

: ' We can not, by yielding to the latitudinary encroachments 

* Roger S. Howard, Thetford, Yt. 



8-1 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

of the age, consent to have our children reared under a system 
of such compromise, as prevails in some States ; and accord- 
ing to -which the child's creed shall be so diluted as to be equally 
paletablc to the Socinian, the Jew, or the Musselman. For 
we hold it as a judgment common to us with our fathers, that 
we owe it to God and to our baptized offspring, to teach the 
rising race nothing less than the whole counsel of God, in 
regard to their salvation. Others will not do this work for 
us : nay, others, whether christian or unchristian, are doing 
the very opposite with all their might. 

" If there is any period of life in which man receives deep 
impressions, it is the period of childhood. If there are any 
hours of childhood, in which permanent opinions are commu- 
nicated, the hours spent in school are such. If there is any 
place, where it is important to inculcate the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, it is the place of daily, com- 
mon instruction. And with all our reverence and affection for 
Sabbath-schools, for which we bless the name of God, we are 
unwilling to let six days pass by, without a word of Christ, 
however faithfully He may be held forth to our offspring on 
the seventh." 

In 1850, during the session of the Lutheran Synod of Ma- 
ryland, the following resolutions were passed : " Inasmuch 
as it was the custom of our church at the time of its establish- 
ment in thi3 country to have schools connected with every 
congregation, in which the children of the church were intend- 
ed to be brought under the tuition of competent christian 
teachers, and instructed in the elementary branches of an ed- 
ucation, including the common academical course, preparatory 
to higher Seminaries, sacred music, the catechisms and doc- 
trines of the church : therefore, 

Resolved, That we regret that this arrangement of the 
church has been discontinued amongst us, and that we re- 
commend the establishment of congregational schools in all the 
congregations of each charge, with a view of bringing the 
children under christian instructions, whilst their primary 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 85 

•education is attended to, and preparing pupils for our higher 
institutions of learning. 

Resolved, That each minister in connection with this Syn- 
od, be requested to preach upon the subject of religious edu- 
cation, and use his endeavors to establish such schools in every 
congregation within his charge." 

Now, when the churches are conscious of the wretched con- 
dition of our primary school system, and see that it does not 
meet the expectation of christian communities, and have ex- 
pressed themselves accordingly, how pitiable are those per- 
sons who constitute so large a class of our population, in their 
views of female worth and female character, when they are 
satisfied that the primary schools afford sufficient facilities for 
the education of their daughters. 

Missionary schools in heathen countries furnish us with 
models of educational systems. Their schools are founded 
•upon religious principles, and are most successful in their op- 
erations. Children are under religious instructors from the 
primary school to their highest Seminaries. They are taught 
the truth of the Bible while they are taught to spell and read; 
and religious instructions are imparted clay by day to the com- 
pletion of their education. The conversion and future useful- 
ness of the pupils is a constant object of solicitude and prayer. 

Mr. Spaulding, Missionary to Ceylon, writes to the Board, 
as published in the Missionary Herald, July, 1852 : " The in- 
fluence of our Seminary at Batticotta, and of the female board- 
ing school at Oodooville, is deepening and widening; and 
•every year adds to the evidence that our plans and course have 
been laid by Him who had far more foresight and forethought 
than we had. Some of the results, as they now come before 
lis, are as strangely encouraging as they were formerly sad 
and disheartening. The educational statistics of the mission 
are as follows : Fourteen English day schools, five hundred 
and one scholars, seventy-three native free schools, and three 
'thousand, two hundred and fifty pupils. Ninety-nine pupils in 



Sti A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

the Battacotta Seminary and ninety-five in the Oodooville Fe- 
male Boarding School." 

The Rev. H. Chcevcr in his late work on the Sandwich Isl- 
ands,, says : " There are now Twenty-two Thousand Men 
and Women in the Christian Church, on these Islands, 
and Seventeen Thousand Pupils in Christian Schools." 
Of the Female Seminary at Lahaina, he says, "its influence 
has undoubtedly been great and salutary. The short time in 
which the institution has been in operation hardly authorizes 
a judgment, as to how far its ends have been answered. But 
no one who examines it, and sees its practical working, can 
fail of the conviction that female family boarding-schools, 
must form a very important instrumentality in the work of 
elevating this nation." 

" One of the most remarkable facts in missionary experi- 
ence, is recently reported from the Nestorian Mission in Per- 
sia. ' A Persian Prince, the uncle of the king of Persia, and 
a man of great influence, has become a permanent annual sub- 
scriber of one hundred dollars to the American Board, incon- 
sequence, says he, of the beauty of conduct and labors of high 
rank of the American clergymen residing at Oroomiah, who 
are occupied in the instruction of youth.' This is Mohammedan 
homage to the schools of Christianity." 

Frequently, in superior schools, and particularly female 
seminaries, not in connection with any denomination of chris- 
tians, men are employed as Principals and Professors, without 
any defined religious views, who are as likely to be infidels as 
any thing else; and they, in connection with the friends of such 
establishments, maintain the plea that all institutions ought to 
be without connection with the church, and belong to the pub- 
lic, like primary schools, lest sectarianism be taught. Conse- 
quently irreligious men can preside over them, whether Infidel, 
Mohammedan, or Christian, so they have policy enough to 
conceal their real sentiments. 

We want institutions in connection with the church, and 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 87 

under the control of godly and devoted instructors, -who in- 
terest themselves in the conversion and religious welfare of 
their pupils. Miss Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke 
Seminary, passed through about thirty revivals of religion in 
the institutions over which she presided, "in most of which 
she was a prominent actor, and had agonized in prayer before 
they came." 

The following extract is from a published notice of Miss 
Lyon's death, by Miss H. Lyman, of Montreal: — "Is she 
missed ? Scarcely a State in the American Union but con- 
tains those she trained. Long, ere this, amid the hunting- 
grounds of the Sioux, and the villages of the Cherokees, the 
tear of the missionary has wet the page which has told of 
Miss Lyon's departure. The Sandwich Islander will ask why 
is his white teacher's eye dim, as she reads her American let- 
ters. The swarthy African will lament with his sorrowing 
guide, who cries, 'Help, Lord, for the godly ceaseth.' The 
cinnamon groves of Ceylon, and the palm-trees of India, 
overshadow her early deceased missionary pupils ; while those 
left to bear the burden and heat of the day will wail the saint 
whose prayers and letters they so much prized. Among the 
Nestorians of Persia, and at the base of Mount Olympus will 
her name be breathed softly, as the household name of one 
whom God hath taken." 

We need schools and seminaries in connection with the 
church, and under the control of the church. We need reli- 
gious principals, and professors, and teachers, to preside over 
them, if we wish the daughters of our land to be competent 
to occupy every opening field of usefulness in the church ; 
and also to take their part in the preservation of our country's 
welfare. We must have normal schools of the proper char- 
acter, if we are to be supplied with a sufficient number of 
self-denying religious teachers, for the children and female 
youth of every village in our land, and the Sabbath-school 
classes of every parish church, whose influence will not only 



88 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

be felt with the pupils whom they teach, but who will command 
a respect, that society around will feel the force of their ex- 
ample, and the power of their piety. We need female mis- 
sionaries to gather the millions of uncared for heathen children 
into schools ; well educated pious ladies, willing, for the sake 
of Christ, to incur the dangers of every climate, and the pri- 
vations of every Pagan land. "We need mothers capable of 
teaching, conscious of their position, and honest enough to 
implant the awful precepts of the Bible upon the heart of 
their offspring. 



CHAPTER VI 



Objections to. Female Seminaries Answered : — > 

" It is owing to the innate good sense of the women of this 
country, that they are not absolute idiots. I would not give 
a farthing to have a daughter of mine go to many of the 
schools for females of our country. Observe the state of 
those schools, and compare them with the colleges for males. 
The end kept in view, in the education of males, is to make 
them useful; in that of females, to make them admired." — 
Dr. Dwight. 

" By this time I take for granted she is a perfect adept in 
several smaller, but not unnecessary embellishments, which the 
late Lord Chesterfield would have called female graces. Such 
as "to lisp, to mince some words, and to be utterly unable to 
pronounce some letters, to be extremely near-sighted, to top 
the fan with elegance, to manage the snuff-box according to 
art, to kiss a lap-dog with delicacy, to languish with propriety, 
and be just ready on some occasions to faint away judicious- 
ly." — Rev. A. Toplady. 

We will devote this chapter to the objections mostly urged 
against female seminaries. 

First : Those institutions which pass under the name of 
Female Seminaries, frequently abuse the confidence reposed in 
them, from the superficial course of instruction which com- 
pletes a girl's education. 

It is not our aim to attempt to answer the question, whether 
females have the same strength of mind and abilities for the 
acquisition of every branch of literature that males have. 
Neither is it our intention to prescribe a course of studies. 



90 A FLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

and specify the text books that are necessary to complete a 
girl's education ; the abler abilities of Hannah More, and Miss 
Edgeworth, and others, have been enlisted in the discussion of 
this subject. But it appears sometimes to be taken for grant- 
ed that females have very feeble natural capacities, from the 
limited course of studies, and the character of the text-books 
that are used in some seminaries and boarding-schools. Sim- 
plified and abridged editions of books on the most important 
sciences, brought down to the capacity of children, are selected. 
Three years is mostly the length of a course of studies which 
a girl can enter who has no other qualifications than ability to 
read, and graduate at its termination. 

At public examinations, it is for the interest of the teachers 
to set forth their pupils' abilities, and acquisitions, in the most 
conspicuous light. Upon the one hand it excites the applause 
of the spectators, and upon the other the vanity of the pupils. 
"Kind teachers are also under a disadvantage resembling ten- 
ants at rack-rent : it is their interest to bring in an immediate 
revenue of praise and profit ; and, for the sake of a present 
rich crop, those who are not strictly conscientious, do not care 
how much the ground is impoverished for future produce." * 
At many of our female schools, after the three years have 
terminated, the regular routine of examination gone through 
with, and the distributions of rewards for merit attended to, 
the pupils return to their homes graduated. Hannah More's 
Two Wealthy Farmers may serve to describe their education : 
" The Misses Bragwell came home at the usual age of leaving 
school, with a large portion of vanity grafted on their native 
ignorance. The vanity was added, but the ignorance was not 
taken away. 

"Of religion they could not possibly learn anything, since 
none was taught ; for, at that place, Christianity was consid- 
ered a part of education which belonged only to charity 
schools. 



• Hannah More. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 91 

<c Of knowledge, they had got just enough to laugh at their 
fond parents rustic manners and vulgar language, and just 
enough taste to despise and ridicule every girl who was not 
as vainly dressed as themselves. As to their time, they spent 
the morning in bed, the noon in dressing, the evening at mu- 
sic and night in reading novels." In this age of imposition, 
there are female schools enough — frequently individual enter- 
prises, in which the proprietors have no other interest than 
making money — that furnish the country with any number of 
such graduates, and there are many parents ignorant enough 
to brag of the finished education of their daughters, and tell 
you to your heart's content how much money their children 
cost them, and what they have read, and written, and said, 
since they left school. 

These proceedings are abuses of Female education, which 
neither argue the incapacity of females, nor obtain against well 
established institutions under the care of experienced and in- 
telligent teachers. Solidity, not show, is aimed at in good 
schools ; usefulness more than embellishment; modesty and pi- 
ety instead of fashion and flippancy. Every parent and guar- 
dian ought to have discrimination enough to tell a burlesque 
upon female schools, from female schools. 

Second: Learning will just make females proud. 

They are not the educated who are pedantic and affected, 
and attempt to make an ostentatious display of literary attain- 
ments : but such as are ambitious to gain notice, and have not 
mental acquirements enough to attain their object, resort to 
dress and external embellishments. "It is because the super- 
ficial nature of their education furnishes them with a false and 
low standard of intellectual excellence, that women have too 
often become rediculous by the unfounded pretensions of liter- 
ary vanity ; for it is not the really learned, but the smatterers, 
who have generally brought their sex into discredit by an ab- 
surd affectation which has set them on despising the duties of 
ordinary life." * 

* Hannah More'e Works. 



92 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

" Diffuse knowledge generally among women, and you will 
at once cure the conceit which knowledge occasions while it is 
rare. Vanity and conceit we shall of course witness among 
men and women so long as the world endures ; but by multi- 
plying the attainments upon which these feelings are founded, 
you increase the difficulty of indulging them. When learning 
ceases to be uncommon among women, learned women will 
cease to be affected." * 

The same objection may also be made with equal propriety 
against the education of men ; for there are enough who are 
pronounced proud, who have returned from school with raowa- 
tachios upon the upper lip, and fantastic ornaments of dress 
around their person ; "but who would," as one said, "not 
take up an out-of-place lamentation, did they lay one hand 
upon the head, and designate their ailment in the cry of the 
young Shunamite of the Bible, ' My head, my head.' " 

This class of men not unfrequently join in the cry against 
female education. Sidney Smith says, " we cannot deny 
the jealousy which exists among pompous and foolish men re- 
specting the education of women. There is a class of pedants 
who would be cut short in the estimation of the world a whole 
cubit if it were generally known that a young lady of eighteen 
could be taught to decline the tenses of the middle voice, or 
acquaint herself with the iEolic vanities of that celebrated 
language. Then women have, of course, all ignorant men for 
enemies to their instruction, who being bound, as they think, 
in point of sex, to know more, are not well pleased, in point 
of fact, to know less." The ignorant, not the learned, are 
proud ; the educated have more to think about than their per- 
son and their dress. 

Third: If females are educated they neglect their families, 
and are too lazy to work. 

"There is a general notion, that the moment you put the 
education of woman upon a better footing than it is at pre- 

* Sidney Smith. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 93 

sent, at that moment there will be an end of all domestic? 
economy ; and if you once suffer a woman to eat of the treo 
of knowledge, the rest of the family will very soon be reduced 
to the same kind of serial and unsatisfactory diet. Can any 
thing, for example, be more perfectly absurd than to suppose 
that the care and perpetual solicitude which a mother feels for 
her children, depends upon her ignorance of Greek and ma- 
thematics ; and that she would desert an infant for a quadratic 
equation ! — that Cimmerian ignorance can aid parental affec- 
tion, or the circle of arts and sciences produce its destruc- 
tion." * 

Suppose education has a tendency to make females lazy r 
would it not, in accordance with the same law, have a similar 
effect upon the male sex ? Hence, in accordance with this 
course of beautiful philosophy, the most educated and intelli- 
gent countries must contain the laziest people. The Northern 
States, where education is most generally attended to, both 
male and female, must be inhabited by most lazy, indolent 
people, destitute of all enterprise ! Facts teach the contrary. 

Parents frequently are in the fault of their children's 
worthlessness. After they have spent four or five hundred dol- 
lars in sending a daughter a few years to a bording-school, or 
a son to college, he must now, in consequence of his prodi- 
gious learning, look out for a profession, and the daughter 
aim higher in her prospects than their neighbor's children, 
who have never been at boarding-school. Daughters, under 
the care of such parents, destitute of learning, refinement, 
and good sense, are indulged in idleness and gossiping, and 
will naturally be thrown into idle, reckless classes of society, 
and not unfrcquently contract unfortunate alliances. 

Fourth : Those institutions are only for the rich, from their 
expensiveness. 

An education worthy of the name must embody the great 
principles of Christianity, benevolence, love, kindness, &c. 

* Sidney Smith. 



9-1 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

It implies a drawing out of the powers of the mind and heart, 
and when this is once done, you can confine those powers no 
more. The educated female looks around with an eye of com- 
passion, and as she sees humanity in its distresses, under want 
and ignorance, her "spirit will be stirred up," and her dispo- 
sition will be that of the prophet of God : " ' here, Lord, am I, 
send me ;' I wish to be useful — I wish to take my part in 
the great Avorks of love and beneficence." 

" By the law of consanguinity we are one brotherhood, and 
one body ; no one member of this body can suffer, but all tho 
members must suffer with it ; and no one member can be truly 
honored, but all the members must rejoice with it. Where men 
are religious, therefore, this principle appeals to their religion) 
and enforces all its dictates ; where men are not religious, but 
have only an enlightened selfishness, it invokes that selfishness 
to do good to others, for the reflected benefits to itself 5 and 
thus it leaves only those to pursue a different course, who are 
morally selfish and intellectually blind. Hence, any system 
of education that does violence to this great principle of uni- 
versal benevolence, — which circumscribes itself within the 
limits of a family, a caste, a party, or a sect — is but human 
weakness wrestling- against Divine Power." * Well educated, 
kind hearted, benevolent females, would soon make arrange- 
ments for the education of the poor in every neighborhood ; 
they would open schools everywhere, accessible to the poor 
and rich. 

Give those who can afford it an education of the right kind ; 
give them such an education as is worthy of the name — not 
such a one as the Misses Bragwell received ; but such a one 
as Mary Lyon, or Hannah More and others possessed — and 
their benevolent hearts and enlightened minds will prompt 
them to make immediate arrangements to extend the same 
advantages to the poorer classes. The daughters of poor pa- 
rents would be fortunate to live in a place where such a lady 



* Horace Mann. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 95 

as Miss Lyon, or Mrs. Harriet L. Winslow resided. It is said 
of the former, by Dr. Hitchcock, when at Auckland : that, 
"surrounded by the young women who have been described in 
the foregoing pages, she first conceived the vague notion of a 
Seminary which should be so moderate in its expenses as to bo 
open to the daughters of farmers and artisans, and to teachera 
who might be mainly dependent for their support on their own 
exertions." Every exertion would be made by educated fe- 
males to extend all the facilities of learning to the poor ; they 
would make every sacrifice for its attainment. 

Let not the poor oppose the establishment of Female Semi- 
naries every where ; for well educated females, are the best 
friends the poor ever had ; they have done more, and will do 
more, to alleviate their condition than any other class of per- 
sons. Female Seminaries are not merely to benefit the rich, 
but the poor. " Woman, elevated by the Christian religion, 
was designed by Providence as the principal educator of our 
race. From her entrance on womanhood to the end of her 
life, this is to be her great business." 

Fifth : Such Seminaries and Institutions are too much tax 
upon a community in erecting the buildings and securing 
their endowments. 

Wherever such enterprises are commenced, there are per- 
sons, whom Miss Lyon described, when about to commence 
the building of a Seminary : " They are talking about erect- 
ing a building for a female school in this city, but they have 
had no idea of doing it, except by shares, with the expectation 
of an income. They look at schools, generally, just as they 
would at mercantile business;" they calculate, will it bring six 
per cent, upon our stock ? Seminaries can never be built un- 
der such views. Their value and income to a community 
must be looked upon in a different way. 

When the Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, at South Hadley, 
Mass., which cost sixty thousand dollars, was commenced, the 
first subscriptions were one of one thousand dollars, two of 



96 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

five hundred each, and four of two hundred and fifty each. 
" Miss Lyon visited two maiden ladies who were living com- 
fortably on some property left them by an honored brother. 
Out of their moderate means, they subscribed one hundred 
dollars each to the object. Owing to circumstances which 
they could neither forsee nor control, they soon after lost their 
property ; but, rather than be denied the luxury of helping 
the good work, they labored with their own hands, and earned 
the money to meet their subscription as it became due. With 
such money ivas the institution built. With the prayers of 
these and kindred spirits was every stone and every brick con- 
secrated to the Lord." 

The work of building female seminaries must be a work of 
pure benevolence, which will always be so richly rewarded to 
a community, that they must testify to the divine truth, " it 
is more blessed to give than to receive." 

But seminaries, like churches, have their value not only in 
an intellectual and moral point of view directly, but in dollars 
and cents indirectly. Will education and the gospel sustain 
the righteousness and character of a people? Is property 
more valuable in a virtuous and intelligent community than in 
an ignorant and depraved one ? What is an estate worth in 
the hands of ignorant and dissipated heirs ? What intelligent 
man, of christian and refined parental feelings, would risk 
raising a family in an ignorant and dissipated community, 
when he could have access to others, where his children would 
be influenced by the intelligent and elevated christian charac- 
ter of his neighbors, and the refinement of their society? 
Would a man, with high views of virtue and proper solicitude 
for the welfare of his family, reside in a community where 
his children would run a great risk of contracting alliances 
for life with the dissipated and the unchaste ? There is a 
more intimate connection between the real value of property, 
and the intelligence, and virtue, and Christian character of a 
people than many would be willing to admit. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 97 

We are told, Gen. 13: 10, 11, " And Lot lifted up his eyes, 
and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered 
every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, 
even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as 
thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain 
of Jordan." This man made the mistake of overlooking 
the moral interests of his family for their mere secular inter- 
ests, and the consequence was, his family were ruined. There 
are some who would not risk a family among a people, how- 
ever well located of whom it was said, "the men of the 
place were wicked, and sinners before the Lord, exceedingly," 
as was said of Sodom ; and those persons who would refuse 
to settle their families in such communities are, mostly, the salt 
of the earth. 

A people never lose any thing by large contributions to 
seminaries of learning, and churches, and by sustaining tal- 
ented and godly men as their ministers and the teachers of 
their children. They are indirectly gainers in a pecuniary 
point of view, as well as in real happiness, and the enjoyments 
which emanate from the refinements of society, in domestic, 
social, and civil life. 

Sixth : The character of females in reference to their influ- 
ence and abilities is overwrought. 

Woman's character is peculiarly affected by the fall of 
mankind. The curse of God fell heavily upon her, for the 
agency she had in bringing about that disaster. Yet the his- 
tory of the world shows that a compassionate God is over- 
ruling all her misfortune to her good. The curse which has 
entailed sorrows and trials upon her : those very trials are 
made instrumental in turning her attention to heaven, as she 
seeks refuge in the bosom of her Saviour. "Of ' devout and 
honorable women,' the Sacred Scriptures record ' not afezv.' 
Some of the most affecting scenes, the most interesting trans- 
actions, and the most touching conversations, which are re- 
corded of the Savior of the world, occurred with women. Their 

7 



98 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

examples have supplied some of the most eminent instances 
of faith and love. The heroic confessors, devoted saints, and 
unshrinking martyrs to the Church of Christ, has not been 
the exclusive honor of the bolder sex." 

We mostly, in all the churches, see one-third more females 
at the confirmations and communions, than males ; which made 
a distinguished divine remark, that he believed there would be 
many more souls of females in heaven than of the other sex. 
Like the Savior of inankind — who took upon himself hu- 
man nature, and became a "man of sorrows and acquainted 
Avith grief," suffered the temptations and pains of human life, 
that He might be " touched with the feeling of our infirmi- 
ties" — so woman, in sorrow and frequent tears, knows how to 
sympathize with the afflicted and the children of want. The 
widow of Sarepta, who divided the last handful of meal with 
the prophet of God, only portrays the nature of her sex. 

Mr. Ledyard says : "To a woman, I never addressed myself 
in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving 
a decent and friendly answer. If I was hungry or thirsty, 
wet or sick, they did not hesitate, like men, to perform a gen- 
erous action : in so free and kind a manner did they contri- 
bute to my relief, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest 
draught ; and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a 
double relish." — Mr. Parle's Travels in Africa. 

"A Christian Widow's Revenge." — "When the Rev. 
Henry R. Wilson, of the mission to Northern India, was in 
London, on his way to this country, he was sent for by a lady, 
who wished to consult him about a mission to the Punjaub. 
Her husband had been slain on the battle-field, and she was 
now dependant on the pension of a soldier's widow ; but she 
wished to sustain, at her own expense, a missionary to that 
people by whose hands her husband had fallen. This was a 
Christian woman's revenge. She did not wish to wait for one 
to be trained for the work, but, although a member of the 
church of England, she desired to have one of the Prcsbyte- 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 99 

i'lan missionaries, now there and ready to preach, transferred 
to that particular district, that he might immediately proclaim 
the gospel to those who had made her a widow, and her chil- 
dren orphans." :|c 

"The mind in each sex has some kind of Lias which is nat- 
ural to it, which constitutes a distinction of character, and 
the happiness of both, depends, in a great measure, on the pre- 
servation and observance of this distinction. Women's hearts 
are naturally soft and flexible, open to impressions of love and 
gratitude; their feelings tender and lively : all these are fa- 
vorable to the cultivation of a devotional spirit." f 

It is not our intention to intimate that all the effects of 
depravity have not debased woman's soul, and the same pro- 
cess of regeneration is not requisite to qualify her to take 
her proper position in the church, and to secure her a home 
with God in heaven. Whilst the calendar of saints has been 
filled up in part from her sex, and she showed a willingness to 
be baptized in blood, from the young maiden to the aged ma- 
tron, during the ages of the church's martyrdom, she also 
contributed her part to make up the list of criminals. She 
had her Jezebal in the Old Testament, and her Herodias in 
the New. In the Apocalypse a woman in the wilderness is 
the symbol of the church in persecution ; but the church's 
great enemy is symbolized by "a woman arrayed in purple 
and scarlet color, and decked with gold, and precious stones, 
and pearls." 

But woman's character is again portrayed by Isaiah, when 
in contradistinction to man he asks : " can a ivoman forget 
her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the 
son of her womb ?" It is maternal affection which is natural 
to her, that will enable her, when properly educated, to meet 
her responsibility to her children. Thus her natural affection 
may be illustrated by what Humboldt gives in his travels. He 



* American Messenger, July, 1847. 
f Hannah More. 



100 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

tells us, that, " after lie had left the abodes of civilization far 
behind, in the wilds of South America, he found near the con- 
fluence of the Atabapo and Rio Ternie rivers, a high rock, 
called the " Mother's Roce." The circumstances which gave 
this remarkable name to the rock, were these : In 1799, a 
Roman Catholic Missionary led his half civilized Indians out 
on one of those hostile excursions, which they often made, to 
kidnap slaves for the christians. They found a Quahiba wo- 
man in a solitary hut, with three children, two of whom were 
infants. The father, with the older children, had gone out to 
fish; and the mother, in vain, tried to fly with her babes. She 
was seized by those men-hunters, hurried into a boat, and car- 
ried away to a Missionary station at San Fernando. 

She was now far from home, but she had left children there 
who had gone with their father. She repeatedly took her 
three babes and tried to escape, but was as often seized, brought 
back, and most unmercifully beaten with whips. At length 
the Missionary determined to separate this mother from her 
three children ; and for this purpose, sent her in a boat to the 
Atabapo River, to the missions of the Rio Negro, at a station 
called Javita. Seated in the bow of the boat, the mother 
knew not where she was going, or what fate awaited her. She 
was bound solitary and alone in the boat ; but she judged, 
from the direction of the sun, she was going away from her 
children. By a sudden effort she broke her bands, plunged 
into the river, swam to the left bank of the Atabapo, and 
landed upon a JlocJc. 

She was pursued, and at evening retaken and brought back 
to the rock, where she was scourged till her blood reddened 
the rock,— calling for her children !— and the rock has ever 
since been called " The Mother's Rock !" Her hands were 
then tied upon her back, still bleeding from the manatee thongs 
of leather. She was then dragged to the mission at Javita, and 
thrown into a kind of stable. The night was profoundly dark, 
it was in the midst of the rainy season. She was now 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION, 101 

full seventy-five miles, in a straight line, from her three chil- 
dren. Between her and them lay forests never penetrated by 
human footsteps ; swamps, and morasses, and rivers never 
crossed by man. But her children are at S an Fernando ; 
and what can quench a mother's love ! Though her arms were 
wounded, she succeeded in biting the bands with her teeth, 
and in the morning she was not to be found ! At the fourth 
rising sun she had passed through the forests, swam the rivers, 
and, all bleeding and worn out, was seen hovering around the 
little cottage in which her babes were sleeping ! 

She was seized once more ; and, before her wounds were 
healed, she was torn again from her children, and sent away 
to the missions on the upper Oronoco river, where she droop- 
ed, and shortly died, refusing all kinds of nourishment ; died 
of a broken heart, at being torn from her children ! Such is 
the history of the "Mother's Rock." 

Seventh : The time was when opposition prevailed in some 
sections of the country, to a great extent, against all colleges 
and theological seminaries. Some ignorant preachers in their 
sermons would fairly burn in holy indignation against all 
" high schools," 

Notwithstanding this, education has advanced unchecked, 
and colleges have gone up every where ; and some of those 
very classes of people, preachers included, have seen their folly 
and are now the best friends of learning. So it will be every 
where, both with male and female education: it will rise 
higher and higher in the estimation of all thinking minds. 

Every American should have penetration enough to see, 
from the genius of our own government, that here mind can 
not be kept down ; education must advance. " The startling- 
fact is, the human mind in this country cannot remain unedu- 
cated. In some way or other the spirit of our free institutions 
will arouse and develope mental energies, and render them 
fearfully available for good or evil. The decree has gone 
forth, and it is like the law of the Medes and Persians, which 



102 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCA1 I 

cannot be altered. The grave of popular ignorance lias been 
dug deeper than the roots of the Allcghanics ; its epitaph 
written in the declaration of '70, and its funeral dirge chanted 
when the crew of the Mayflower first sang their sailor's hymn 
before the rock of Plymouth." * 

The alternative is not with objectors to those educational 
efforts, shall we have them or not ? but it is with us all, shall 
we have them under the care of the church, and under the in- 
fluence of religion? We must have Female Seminaries as well 
as Colleges; we must have them! If the church does not 
awake to her duty the world will, and they Will build semina- 
ries, and put them under the control of men of the world, and 
manage them to suit their taste and fashions, destitute of re- 
ligion, and the result will be deleterious. 

" But all objectors may depend upon it, however the sys- 
tem of female education may be exalted, that there will never 
be wanting a due proportion of failures ; and that after pa- 
rents, guardians, and preceptors have done all in their power 
to make every body wise, there will still be a plentiful supply 
of women, who have taken special care to remain otherwise ; 
and they may rest assured, if the utter extinction of ignorance 
and folly is the evil they dread, their interests will always b( 
effectually protected, in spite of every exertion to the con- 
trary." f 



' Dr. Johns. 

f Sidney Smilhon Female Education. 



,- 



LUTHERAN INSTITUTIONS IN MARYLAND. 



The Lutheran Church has been delinquent upon the subject 
of female education within this State ; but is now making ar- 
rangements for the erection of two institutions within the 
bounds of the Maryland Synod. These institutions are re- 
commended to the church by the following resolution of Synod : 

" Resolved, That we learn with pleasure, that efforts are 
making to erect Lutheran Female Seminaries at Hagerstown 
and Baltimore, that we highly approve of these efforts, and 
earnestly pray that God may abundantly bless them, and that 
we recommend both contemplated institutions to the confidence 
and encouragement of all our churches." 

The institution at Hagerstown has been commenced. The 
corner-stone of the building was laid on the 29th of Sep- 
tember, 1852. Its dimensions are one hundred and twenty- 
seven feet long, fifty wide, and four stories high ; sufficient, 
when completed, to accommodate one hundred boarders, and 
one hundred day scholars. The plan and design of this in- 
stitution may be- seen from its charter, as follows : 

AN ACT 

To Incorporate a Literary Institution at Hagerstown, 
in Washington County, to be styled the Hagerstown 
Female Seminary. 

Whereas, Many citizens of Hagerstown and its vicinity 
and others, have subscribed money to an amount exceeding 



104 A FLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

twenty-five thousand dollars, for the purpose of building and 
endowing a Seminary for the education of Females, upon the 
plan of Scholarships, to be located at Hagcrstown, in Washing- 
ton County, under the auspicies of the Lutheran Church, and 
have applied for an Act of Incorporation: 

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Ma- 
ryland, That Andrew Hogmire, Jonathan Hager, David Artz, 
Charles Spangler, Frederick J. Posey, Thomas G. llobertson, 
James B. McKee, Wm. Hawken, Henry K. Tice of Washing- 
ton County, and all others who have subscribed, or shall here- 
after subscribe for scholarships in said Seminary, at Hagcrs- 
town, Washington County, and their successors, shall be, and 
they are hereby declared and constituted a body politic or 
corporate, under the name and style of the " Hagerstown Fe- 
male Seminary," and by that name shall sue and be sued, 
implead and be impleaded, answer and be answered, defend 
and be defended in any of the Courts of law or equity in this 
State ; shall have and use a common seal, and the same change, 
break or renew at pleasure ; receive, hold or possess property, 
real, personal or mixed, to the amount and for the purpose 
hereinafter expressed ; pass such by-laws, rules and regula- 
tions as may be deemed necessary, not inconsistent with this 
Act, or the constitution and laws of this State ; and to per- 
form all such other acts as may rightfully appertain to them 
consistently with the objects and powers herein expressed and 
conferred. 

Sec. 2. And be it enacted, That the object of said Institu- 
tion or Seminary shall be the promotion of a liberal female 
education. 

Sec. 3. And be it enacted, That said Seminary, shall be 
established and conducted upon the plan of Scholarships, to an 
amount not exceeding sixty thousand dollars ; each scholar- 
ship to be fixed at such sum as the Trustees, hereinafter pro- 
vided for, shall designate, not less than one hundred dollars, 
which scholarships, except so much thereof as the Trustees 



A PLEA FOE, FEMALE EDUCATION. 105 

may deem it expedient to spend in the purchase of grounds 
and the erections and furnishing of buildings for the Seminary 
and the professors, shall be invested in some safe mode by the 
Trustees to serve as an endowment fund, the interest of which 
shall be applied to the support of the Professors and Teachers 
of the Institution, and in such repairs, improvements, library 
and apparatus as the Trustees may, from time to time, deem 
necessary and proper. 

Sec. 4. And be it enacted, That in addition to said amount 
of scholarships, the said corporation shall be capable of hold- 
ing by gift, grant, bequest or devise, other property and funds, 
real, personal, and mixed, to an amount not exceeding the 
annual value of ten thousand dollars, to be used for the gen- 
eral purposes of said Institution, and with power to sell, trans- 
fer, lease and convey any part thereof. 

Sec. 5. And be it enacted, That every subscriber for schol- 
arships in said Seminary, shall have the right and privilege of 
having educated in it, one female pupil for each scholarship 
he or she may hold, at all times and free of charge, in such 
studies as shall not be declared extra branches. But that all 
holders of scholarships shall pay for the instruction of their 
pupils in such branches of education as the Trustees shall de- 
clare extra branches, such tuition fees as may be prescribed 
for the same : provided, however, that it shall be competent 
for the Trustees in case the value of' a scholarship shall be 
fixed at a greater sum than one hundred dollars, to determine 
the proportion of benefits to which those who have subscribed 
or shall subscribe that sum shall be entitled. 

Sec. 6. And be it enacted, That the present Trustees, who 
have been chosen at a general meeting of the patrons, shall 
hold their office until the first Monday of October next, when, 
and every third year thereafter, on said day (or such other 
day as may be fixed by the by-laws,) shall be chosen by the 
patrons or subscribers for scholarships, in such mode as shall 
be prescribed by the by-laws, a Board of Trustees to consist 



10G A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

of fifteen patrons, ten of whom shall be members of the Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Church and five of these regular ministers in 
Baid Church, the residue of the Board to consist of persons 
not belonging to that denomination ; and that in voting for 
said Trustees, each patron shall be entitled to one vote for 
every scholarship he may hold, and in all general meetings, of 
the patrons, for the transaction of business, each patron shall 
have a vote according to the foregoing rates : provided that 
any one who docs not hold a full scholarship shall be allowed 
a vote, during the period he may be enjoying, or entitled to 
benefits in said Seminary. 

Sec. 7. And be it enacted, That the Trustees shall chose 
from among their own body, a President, Secretary and Trea- 
surer, whose respective duties and terms of service shall be 
prescribed by the by-laws ; the Treasurer to give bond for the 
faithful discharge of his duties, in such penalties as may be 
prescribed by the by-laws, and with such sureties as the Trus- 
tees shall approve, and be allowed such salary as they may 
determine. The Trustees shall also have power to fill all va- 
cancies that may occur in their body, from death, resignation, 
removal or any other cause, — regard being had to the mode 
of constituting the Board, prescribed in the preceeding Sec- 
tion. 

Sec. 8. And be it enacted, That a majority of said Trus- 
tees, including the President, shall constitute a quorum for the 
transaction of any business; and said Trustees shall have 
power to select a site for said Seminary, and to contract for 
the purchase of the same, and the erection of the necessary 
buildings ; to adopt a plan of the same ; to appoint the Prin- 
cipal of said Seminary, and such Professors and Teachers as 
may from time to time be deemed expedient, and to fix their 
several salaries or compensation ; to determine the age and 
qualification of pupils for admission into the Seminary, and 
the regular or ordinary course of studies to be pursued in the 
Institution and also the extra branches, with the fees for in- 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 107 

struction in the latter ; to adopt all rules for the government 
of said Institution and the supervision and management of the 
property and funds of the same ; to appoint an agent or 
agents for completing subscriptions for scholarships, and dona- 
tions, and for collecting the same, and to fix the compensation 
for his or their services ; to make all purchases of furniture, 
books, scientific implements, &c, for the use of said Seminary; 
to fix the number and value of the scholarships, and to do and 
perform all other acts necessary and expedient for the conduct 
and management of said Institution and the promotion of its 
object. 

Sec. 9. And be it enacted, That all scholarships shall be 
deemed the property of the Subscribers thereto, in the nature 
of stock, for which certificates may be issued, when fully paid, 
by the Trustees, in such forms as they may prescribe, and the 
same shall be transferable on the books of the Institution, in 
person or by Attorney, or shall pass to the personal represen- 
tatives of a deceased Subscriber, or to his legatee. 

Sec. 10. And be it enacted, That the scholarships may be 
paid in such instalments as shall be prescribed by the Trus- 
tees : provided that interest be charged and made payable on 
the deferred instalments semi-annually, from such time as the 
Board may determine; and it shall be competent for the Trus- 
tees to allow subscribers for scholarships to retain the value 
thereof in their own hands, upon such terms and conditions, 
and for such time as the Trustees shall prescribe ; the said 
subscriber regularly paying the interest thereon to the Trea- 
surer, and securing the principal. 

Sec. 11. And be it enacted, That persons not holding- 
scholarships, shall have the privilege of sending pupils to said 
Institution, by complying to the terms and paying the fees to 
be prescribed by the Trustees in such cases. 

Sec. 12. And be it enacted, That the General Assembly 
may at any time hereafter alter, or repeal this act. 

Sec. 13. And be it enacted, That this Act of Incorpora- 



108 A PLEA TOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

tion shall be in force and go into operation from and after the 
day of passage. 

MARYLAND, SCT.: 

We hereby certify that the aforegoing is a true copy from 
the Bill entitled " An act to Incorporate a Literary Institu- 
tion at Hagerstown, in Washington County, to be styled the 
'Hagerstown Female Seminary,' " as passed the General As- 
sembly of Maryland at its present session. 

In testimony whereof we hereunto subscribe our names on 
this 31st day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and fifty-two. 

J. PINKENY, Secretary of the Senate, 
JOS. STEWART, OVk. to Rouse of Delegates. 



LUTHERVILLE FEMALE COLLEGE. 



The other institution is to be called the Lutherville Fe- 
male College, and is to be located within twelve miles of 
Baltimore, between the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad, 
and the Baltimore and York Turnpike. The following is the 
GENERAL announcement. 

We whose names are found in the subjoined charter, unite 
to form a body politic and corporate, for the purpose of es- 
tablishing an Institution in the county of Baltimore, Md., to 
be called " Lutherville Female College." 

MODE OF RAISING THE REQUISITE FUNDS. 

To raise the pecuniary means necessary to establish and en- 
dow this Institution, it is designed, 

1st. To create a joint stock company, to sell 1,000 shares 
of stock at $50 per share, making $50,000, and in attempting 
this, to make such liberal provision in behalf of stockholders, 
in the terms of tuition for their daughters, or the daughters 
of their friends, and also in the way of dividends, as will, it 
is believed, render the stock a safe as well as useful invest- 
ment, and therefore insure its speedy sale. 

2nd. It is also designed to sell the right of having a pupil 
taught for a long period, usually called a scholarship. For 
$500, a person and his successors will have the perpetual right 
of having one pupil taught ; $300 will secure the privilege for 
twenty continuous years ; $200 for ten continuous years ; 
$150 for five continuous years — in the latter three cases the 
charge to those who do not board in the house will be fifteen 
per cent, more to the above rates. 



110 A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION. 

3d. It is yet further designed to lay out a village in the 
vicinity of the College, to be called "Lutherville," for which 
the requisite amount of land has already been secured, most 
beautifully and eligibly situated, and the profits arising from 
the sale of lots, are to be appropriated to the building up of 
the College and other purposes specified in the preceding 
pages. 

4th. And, finally, it is designed to appoint one or more 
agents to solicit donations or free-will offerings from the friends 
of education and good morals in the neighborhood and else- 
where. 

ADVANTAGES OF STOCKHOLDERS. 

1. Stockholders' children, and children recommended by 
them, will have preference in order of admission to the advan- 
tages of the Institution. 

2. Each stockholder will be entitled to a deduction on bills 
of tuition, at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum on each share 
for which he may send a scholar. The daughters of minsters 
shall receive their tuition at 25 per cent, below the establish- 
ed prices, and those of poor Lutheran ministers, gratis. 

3. Each stockholder is entitled to receive a pro rata divi- 
dend, according to the full amount of stock owned by him, on 
all proceeds of the Institution not otherwise appropriated by 
the Board of Trustees. 

It is proper to remark that, in the application of the above 
conditions, it is always expected that stockholders will give 
timely notice, in order to secure seats for their children. It 
would not be right to displace one pupil during the progress 
of a quarter, to accommodate another ; nor would the pupil of 
a stockholder be retained, when her conduct rendered her un- 
fit, according to our established rules, to be a member of the 
Institution. 

THE DESIRABLENESS OF THE STOCK. 

1. The shares are fixed at a low valuation, ($50 each,) being 
less than is usual in similar institutions. 



A PLEA FOR FEMALE EDUCATION". Ill 

2. Being transferable, they will find their way into the 
hands of those who most value the advantages they secure. 

3. As the Institution grows in reputation and in endow- 
ments, and as the surrounding population increases, these 
shares will be in greater demand, and consequently more val- 
uable. 

4. Meantime, stockholders or patrons have their tuition at 
the lowest practicable rates, and that independent of dividends 
and of percentage deducted. 




LJBRARY OF CONGRESS 

= 019 654 037 4 

M'KEE & KOBERTSON, 

DEALERS IN 

ESOKS, STATIONERY, BOOTS, SHOES, &G V 

Nos. 2 <f 3, Hagcr's Boiv, 

Hagerstown, Md., 

Keep a carefully selected stock in the various departments 
of their business, to which they call the attention of pur- 
chasers. * 

Law, Medical, Theological, ScnooL and Miscellaneous 
Books, furnished at the prices of the various publishers, 
and especial attention paid to the faithful execution of all 
orders entrusted to us. 

Orders for the Importation of Foreign Books promptly 
executed; our facilities being combined with those of a 
Philadelphia importing house. 

Book and Pamphlet Printing — for which we are well pre- 
pared — will receive our personal supervision ; and our 
good Book Printing arc moderate. 

ks not in our shelves, will be furnished to order at short 
notice. Libraries furnished to order. 

The L.v ilarly received, and pieces not on 

lied to order at short notice. Pianos of the 

'•; factories furnished at manufacturers prices and 

ted. Musical Instruments of all descriptions form 

a part of our assortment. 

Agents for the sale of popular books arc constantly want- 
In this branch of our ] it i'acili- 
lo give a em] loyment. 












#W 




